The Scientist
by trekkiegirl92
Summary: Ensign Carly Battaglia is 18, brilliant, a science officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise, a quarter Vulcan, and doesn't understand men.  Follow her as she boldly goes where no woman has gone before as she conducts a secret experiment to understand mankind!
1. Chapter 1

The Scientist: A Star Trek 2009 Fanfic

_A/N: Yep, this is the second time this fic has been posted on this site, I admit it, and I am the original author. The first time, I deleted it because of receiving too much hate mail. Go figure. But in any case, I decided to post it again, after blocking an insanely large amount of accounts (due to the unfortunate inability to turn off reviews entirely), because I really enjoyed writing this story regardless, and have an itching to finish it and share it with those who *don't* hate me and followed me this far and really want to read it and keep bugging me (you know who you are). So, I deleted the questionable parts, changed my character's last name because I can and found another one that I liked better. Generic Disclaimer should be inserted here, I don't own Star Trek, I haven't plagiarized this, occasionally I use ideas from the Original Series' episodes, and that wraps it up. __**This is the last author's note you'll ever hear from me because I'm a strong believer that readers don't give a crap about writers' emotastic lives, don't have conversations with my "ZOMG RANDOMNESS" multiple personalities who just serve to irritate everyone, and don't whore for reviews. Haha.**_

There came a time in every young Starfleet cadet's life in which he or she was given the chance to prove their worth. To shine with potential, make the stars look like dull marks of cosmic shadow! The moment could be colossal; it could disintegrate all laws of nature, both human and space, and watch the doubting commandments flutter through taught, thick air like ashes.

Or it could be smaller. Scaled to fit the size of its hero.

Such as proving one's possession of steadfast intelligence.

I am certainly not the most stunning, romantic leviathan like my generally irritating serial-lover roommate Clarissa, nor am I fantastically cunning or clever, paling in comparison to my best friend's regular tormenter, Lucas Hough. And it is clear as day that I also lack the brilliance of my best friend, Pavel Chekov, when sheathed in the glow of a dim computer, muttering in Russian under his breath as he deciphers seemingly impossible advanced theoretical physics homework. When seen in front of a computer, I am generally cursing, screaming, or slamming my head against the wall, for your information. No, I am simply Carlotta Battaglia, a meager-figured, quarter-Vulcan, bright-eyed cadet scientist from the Mars colony.

But I digress; the point of this chapter is not for me to angst about my general average-ness. It is surrounding the fact that there is one massive blemish on my intelligence that I am desperate to erase from all existence, even more so than my incompetence with computers. I am ignorant to the laws of masculine nature.

Exceptionally bright when faced with the intricacies of comparative xenobiology or gravimetrics, I am positively dumbstruck when it comes to the male species. I am not quite as bad as Chekov with girls, but I am still infuriated with this bewildering discrepancy in my span of knowledge, and I ponder the ways of my human counterpart.

I chose my subject randomly. It was not a day marked by specification, as to me, days were merely relative to the haze that plagues my mind whenever Chekov is absent, lately during lunch on Tuesdays because apparently it's the only time he can squeeze in the astrophysics lab to do something highly dangerous that I would probably destroy in five minutes with my clumsy tendencies. In fact, I was merely sitting here, alone with my food, which had curdled after wandering too far as to question where the ingredients for its production were found, and happened to look away from the contents of my plate.

I heaved a sigh of listless boredom, regarding the empty spot beside my tray as a tragedy without my usual book, and then perused the expanse of the room with a curious eye. Then I saw him, my perfect specimen! I ignored the ongoing embarrassment of 'stalking,' as Clarissa would call it, this man; I was obligated as a scientist to study him!

He was exceptionally attractive, I mused absently. He was tall and looked around the cafeteria of younger students with an irritated expression. His eyes were sparkling as he exchanged banter with one of his fellows. I idly wondered if this was the first clue as to the question of my specimen's nature, and instantaneously began a thorough search through my book bag for my data pad. As soon as I began to wonder where I'd left it, I found the thin metal device lodged between the wrapper of a sandwich I'd eaten earlier and Chekov's old quantum mechanics notebook he'd given me, knowing I would never take notes in his absence, without any recollection of it being there.

My heart began to trill at the thought of having something fascinating to do: studying a creature that had remained an enigma to me all those months of watching them walk by my seemingly invisible dormitory (unless they were seeing Clarissa), and sitting behind them in classes I was too much absorbed in to take much heed of anything else. Now, I had my chance! I checked my wristwatch, and then began to write.

_Time: 12:54 P.M._

_Mood: Hungry (is that a mood? ask Chekov later)_

_Specimen A: Rugged and tired looking, but unlike researching party's own slim figure, he has muscles. Tanned, cannot tell eye color from position. Must move closer for additional information. Hair is brown, a bit messy. Note eye color at later date. Addressed by companions as "Jim" instead of any standard name._

_Specimen has reacted to female stimulus of Lieutenant Uhura in a strange way. Instead of snorting violently and nearly choking on his own spit, such as Chekov tends to do in presence of females other than researching party, unless I sneak up on him or poke him mid-snore while sleeping, Specimen smiles and tilts head slightly in her direction. Confused as to emotion this conveys, as it can be a variety of many. Specimen's laugh cannot be heard from proximity, and must be observed at a later date._

_Note: Must find new name for Specimen at a later date._

_Habits: Laughs and smiles often, smiles very wide, teeth are well taken care of and very, very white, a theory of male hygiene must be calculated with this observation…Researcher wonders if Specimen's mouth begins to hurt after so much smiling. Researcher's own mouth begins to hurt. Ouch!_

I idly caressed my jaw as I finished scribbling this data down, and nearly leapt out of my skin to hear the clatter of trays sitting down in front of me. My wide eyes darted up to see none other than Specimen and his companions standing in front of me, faces unfamiliar except Dr. McCoy (who gives me stitches on multiple occasions due to my accident-prone nature) and Lt. Uhura (who I nearly killed in an accidental radioactive chemical spill on my first day in quantum chemistry). Needless to say, my scrawling fingers froze in horror that they caught me creeping about them, and my mouth dropped open in mute horror until a friendly face popped out from behind the much taller Specimen.

"Allo!" none other than my only and best friend Pavel Chekov greeted me, waving so eagerly that he almost knocked the tray of replicated food out of Dr. McCoy's hands. My heart was still racing from terror and I probably resembled a deer caught in headlights as my friend awkwardly scrambled around the table in his usual rushed and hyper manner and pressed me to him in a needless (but welcome) hug.

"Oof!" I wheezed as he squeezed too hard, drawing a giggle from the tall and slender Uhura, her long dark hair swaying gracefully as she sat her tray down and pulled out a chair from the little round table.

"Eet is o-key if we sit here?" Chekov excitedly asked before the North African officer could, and I mutely nodded. He was poking his face uncomfortably close to mine, probably wondering why I was so uncharacteristically quiet around his fellows. "Carly! Wat ees eet? Wat ees wrong?"

"Erm, nothing," I stammered, palms sweating. Specimen was staring blankly at me from across the table, probably wondering what on earth was wrong with me. Chekov calls me 'Carly' because 'Carlotta' is very difficult to say without making an ass of yourself when you have an incredibly heavy Russian accent.

"And wat is _zat_?" he yelped suddenly, and tried to tug my data pad from my hands. I screeched and fought back, and we began to wage a classic tug-of-war. It's always funnier when two skinny teenaged braniacs do it.

"It's…it's my motorcycle magazine!" I exclaimed, lying between my teeth as I pried his long, pale fingers off my belongings. "I was reading it!"

"Oh," Chekov said, seeming disappointed. Judging from the heat radiating from my face, I resembled a tomato. "Well, will ju show it to me later?"

"Sure," I agreed, casually stowing the pad in my book bag. Great, now I had to design a motorcycle during analytical chemistry instead of working on the paper that was due in physics two weeks ago.

"You're into motorcycles?" Specimen asked curiously. His voice was not as deep as I imagined it would be, but still sounded manly.

I gulped and an awkward little gurgling sound came out of my throat before I was able to squeak out an answer. "Uh, yeah. Just a little," I weakly replied, and one of Specimen's thick medium brown eyebrows curved upward. A group of females my age sighed and 'discreetly' fixed their hair as they walked by, making eyes at him. My fingers twitched toward my data pad, but I restrained myself as Dr. McCoy looked at me oddly as I twitched and audibly squeaked.

"Ju should see 'er! Carly ees eencredible!" Chekov cut me off, and my face turned a brighter shade of red. He kept babbling on like a proud parent, describing in unnecessary long and barely understandable detail of one of my races he was present for during shore leave.

Chekov's companions showed varying levels of boredom: Bones was simply eating his meal and paying the rest of us absolutely no attention at all, Uhura was staring into space in Chekov's direction like she had really been trying to follow him, and Specimen had propped his head up on one hand and looked ready to fall asleep. I felt bad, Chekov had gotten so excited, and unfortunately he was cursed with the worst Russian accent known to mankind. I patted his knee when he sunk back into his chair, looking a little sheepish. He knew I could understand him by now, even if no one else was listening.

"Sowree," he apologized, shrugging as his cheeks turned a little pink. We shared our smile, Chekov smiling my favorite crooked one that he didn't show to anyone else (to my knowledge, which I assure you is quite vast) and I flashed my own pearly whites back. I don't usually do the teeth-showing-smile-thing, but Pavel says I light up a room and told me it's his favorite smile. Meanwhile, as I thought of this and stared at his ocean blue eyes, nobody on the other side of the table had moved.

"Oh, he's finished!" Bones exclaimed suddenly, elbowing the lightly snoring Specimen.

"Urgh, oh!" he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes as I glared at him slightly. "Sorry. You know how it is," he justified himself to me, drawing a small external smile from me when Chekov wasn't looking.

"Trust me, you get used to it," I replied in an undertone as Chekov launched into another story on another subject to Uhura and Bones. Specimen snorted and the corners of his mouth twitched at my remark as if to say "tell me about it."

"So, Ensign Chekov told me all about you," he continued, and little parts of me started to die. Had he told him about the time when I dropped my napkin with my number on it in a restaurant and the cute waiter tripped on it and spilled hot coffee all over me? Or all those times when we accidentally walked in on my roommate, Clarissa, having sex? Or when I started that fire in chemistry last year and made the whole building run outside when the alarms went off and I got put on academic probation? Or when I fainted during standard vaccinations in front of everyone, crashed into a table, and broke my leg? People still call me Gimpy for that, by the way.

"Don't worry, Carly, he probably didn't tell me whatever you're thinking of," Specimen said as he laughed. It was a musical, throaty sound that I appreciated greatly. "Jim Kirk," he introduced himself, extending a hand. I think I died for a moment, being in the presence of the hero of Starfleet, who saved Earth from certain destruction by the Romulan war criminal Nero. I wondered as I resurrected myself why he was here for a minute, and not zooming off to save the galaxy in the _Enterprise_, but then I remembered: the crew of the undermanned vessel had to finish their education at the Academy before being assigned to the five-year mission. I was one of many hopeful cadets graduating this year who were vying to fill an empty position on the already infamous ship.

Anyways, I shook his hand, and then he proceeded to tease me about my numerous incidents until my face was so hot you could have cooked an egg on it. I'm notorious for not being the luckiest of people. I should be used to being called Gimpy McLimpy, but the comments stung. Especially coming from Captain James T. Kirk. No, Specimen. That was his name in my mind, and it would be my little secret that lets me snicker behind my hand at him so my own incompetence doesn't hurt so much. I sighed and stole fries from Pavel, attempting to rejoin the conversation like a normal person and get away from Specimen, even though it was pretty odd itself. The conversation might have been about Vulcan mating rituals, but what do I know about weird?

An annoying, eardrum cracking, deafening bell sounded like a foghorn through the lunchroom, indicating that the cadets dispose neatly and efficiently of their garbage and make their way to class or wherever in an orderly fashion. Chekov's and mine older counterparts departed with casual waves and "Nice to meet you, Carly," from Specimen and a "Well, I'll probably see you later in the hospital," from Dr. McCoy. Chekov gallantly held the lid open off the trash can for me as I deposited my barely touched lunch inside. His face darkened immediately into a stormy glower and I prepared to be hounded for eating too little, despite the fact that I was simply never hungry, and even when I did not eat I experienced no negative side effects besides weight loss. So far, I've only gotten away without nutrition for two and a half days when Pavel had a cold and somehow Dr. McCoy tracked me down and forced a hot dog down my throat on his behalf, although he was quite intrigued by the absence of dehydration, starvation, or general sickliness.

"Hey, is hungry a mood?" I curiously asked, tugging on my slightly taller friend's yellow sleeve, marking him as tactical, as he pushed open the painted cherry red cafeteria door and we walked out with a crowd of fellow cadets into a sunlit hallway.

"Shall I eempersonate Doctor McCoy and say I'm a doctor, not a…"

"All right, I get it, you don't know," I cut him off, huffing and falling into step beside him after we wove our way through the crowd and escaped out a door to the grassy lawn that stretched between the towering buildings of the central Starfleet Academy quad. I could see the Golden Gate Bridge stretched scenically out in the background as puffy fat clouds bobbed across the sky. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my red cadet's skirt and awkwardly bobbed back and forth on my heels as we joined a small knot of students waiting outside a locked building. "But a personal opinion would be most useful…"

"Yes, I vould say so," Pavel informed me with a grin directed to my own sunlit face. "May I ask ju a question?"

"Anything for you," I replied automatically, our casual banter so practiced it was almost routine, but no less friendly or loving. Our drill instructor appeared and unlocked the side door leading directly to the locker room. I dreaded drills, but every cadet was required to take them and be in tip-top physical shape. Pavel had no problem, he won the freaking Academy marathon in the autumn, but I seemed to be the freak who couldn't take three steps without causing some sort of accident resulting in her own injury. I'm really not _clumsy_, Pavel and I performed many experiments to prove this, I just have terrible luck.

"Vhat were ju really writing on ze data pad?" he asked in a semi-serious tone, and I dropped my shoulder bag in fright as I tripped over the slightly higher last step leading to the second floor locker rooms for low ranking cadets with a yelp. I always trip on that stair. _Always_.

A firm hand locked itself around my right elbow before I could fall, though, and I managed to scramble my legs back under me, although I lost the bag in the process, but missed the familiar crash and swearing of whoever was unfortunate enough to be behind me. Pavel's hand gripped my elbow with more strength than I'd estimated for him and to my surprise he apparently caught my bag in his other hand, indicated by the fact that it was now dangling from his other shoulder as he regarded me with the look of a man watching a mildly interesting television show. Well, that was new. Maybe being graceful and strong was a magical instant benefit of being an officer on the _Enterprise_.

"Oh, shut up," I snarled at the snickering cadets behind me and allowed Chekov to guide me carefully to the door of the girls' locker room.

"You can let go now," I said, attempting to yank my arm away from him once we reached flat terrain, a.k.a. linoleum hallway. "I think I can make it from here."

"Ju sure?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not, but I smiled and smacked/patted his cheek and pranced in my best imitation of a ballerina down the hallway and through the door. I turned around once I got there to bow with a large flourish and prance inside. Pavel cheered "Bravo!" and grinned at me as we parted ways, sadly, for a total of ten minutes.

Of course, in that time, I somehow offended my roommate when she asked me if her newly altered gym swimsuit looked good on her and I replied quite honestly that she looked like she belonged on the corner of 12th and Cass, which she apparently took offense to. The situation only escalated when as we walked into the area of the Olympic sized swimming pool as my mouth, also about that size, asked her rather sarcastically if I offended one of her boyfriends.

Clarissa is quite a lot taller and heavier than me, and from her expression I could formulate a logical hypothesis that this situation would not end well for either party involved. Mainly myself. Statistically speaking, of course.

"What did you say to me?" she accused in a loud, aggressive voice, and I backed away a little bit, trying to mingle smoothly with another group of swimsuit-clad students, who backed away in fear of impending doom and injuries that generally associate themselves with anyone in a ten foot radius of me.

My voice seemed to fail me as my jaw flapped uselessly on its hinges, and I only wished that I could run as fast as Pavel. I'd never be able to outrun Clarissa, and I shared a dormitory with her, so it wasn't like I had anywhere to hide either. I could win a fight against her, I've completed far more advanced combat training classes than she has, but the administration of the Academy seems to look down on me when I repeatedly solve social problems by causing massive, cataclysmic accidents. Well, it looked like I was going to have to talk my way out of this one.

"Did you call me a _whore?_" she incredulously asked me, as if she hadn't clearly heard me earlier. But, my "people skills" as Dr. McCoy would call them, had progressed quite a bit since I first enrolled in the Academy, and I knew she just wanted to broadcast her wounded ego in front of everyone else so they would ostracize me even more. It was working, currently, but she hadn't figured out yet that I didn't particularly care.

Of course, that was the precise moment my voice decided to start working properly again.

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation can't cure," I blurted out. Girls sharply inhaled in unison and the guys displayed various degrees of interest, nudging and glancing, as a small knot formed around us. I flinched at my own stupidity, and prepared myself for a fight. I might be a complete anathema, and I might be the slowest cadet on account that I am also the shortest cadet, but being cursed can be helpful when battle drills is the one place where no one yells at me for tripping and accidentally shooting everything in sight. I decided in the funny split second of lengthened time due to adrenalin that I would go for her nose first while I stomped on her bare foot. I opened them and apparently no time had passed since Clarissa was merely rounding on me before the charge.

"All right, break it up," the booming and resonating masculine voice of our youthful drill instructor Lt. Ramirez filled the echoing pool, and the knot immediately departed. Clarissa glared at me venomously as I weakly gulped and tried to look menacing as I scampered away to stand next to Pavel by the water. We already knew what was going on, which was a relay race until the second coming of Jesus, and lined up together in our usual teams.

My heart dropped when the drill instructor started changing relay teams to create variety. "Percy, get out of the water. Hough and West, trade teams. Don't give me that lip, Igraine. Chekov, switch with Smith over there," he said carelessly, and directed my friend to switch places with Clarissa. My stomach joined my heart on the ground when she noisily cracked her knuckles, standing behind me. At least he was in the team next to me, I thought. If she tries to drown me, there will be a witness, at least.

"Cadets, ready, go!" the instructor tiredly called, probably having run this drill all day long, observed by a superior officer I did not recognize. I was a little slow to jump off the cement side of the pool, so Clarissa roughly pushed me in from behind. I tumbled with a shriek over the side into the water and got a mouthful of chlorine before I surfaced, choking and spitting it out.

"Go, go!" my teammates urged me, apparently not noticing that I had been shoved. I felt offended that they thought I was that clumsy to fall off the side of the pool like an idiot, and I lingered to glare at them all through my stinging eyes before taking off, fighting to catch up with my classmates. Chekov passed me on his way back, thankfully having missed my flounder on the opposite end of the pool. I had had enough humiliation in front of him for today. I also didn't want to make an idiot of myself in front of the observing superior officer. With this angry thought in mind I finished my lap only ten seconds behind my fellows and pulled myself out of the pool and up to the concrete deck as Clarissa swan-dived over me. I must have looked pretty scary, because my teammates eyed me warily as I stomped to the back of the short line, dripping.

"I hate this bathing suit," I bitterly remarked to Chekov after I finished whining about my roommate as we shivered next in line to each other as our other teammates raced. It was a red two-piece that hung loose on me where it hugged sinuous curves of other girls and the top was basically held on my body by a single knot tied in the back. All the uniforms were irritating here, from the too-short skirts to these damn swimsuits.

"Ju look fine," Chekov tiredly assured me, and it was his turn to go again. His team was much more athletic than mine. I lost count of the times I dove plainly in the water, and my body became numb to the cold created by the unheated water and humid air. It was an easy enough routine, and I appreciated the mindless simplicity of it, much like solving an algebra problem. Left arm, right arm. Cross multiply and slash through the common denominators. Familiar motions. Of course, there was Clarissa trying to make my life hell, which made the process much more difficult. She pushed me a couple more times and even kicked me while getting out of the water before I decided to simply dive off as fast as I could, and she decided to pull the stupid strap on the back of my swimsuit's top.

Needless to say, I found myself very, very quickly in a pool, without a shirt, and very cold while everyone else had a brilliant laugh, Clarissa leading the charge with her full hearted guffaws as she held the skimpy wet piece of red fabric in one hand. The whole class was laughing. Oh, look! Carlotta's gone and done it again!

_I don't care what other people think_, I desperately told myself, telling myself that the stinging in my eyes was chlorine. I squeezed my steaming eyes shut. I wanted to die._ I don't care what other people think!_

It isn't fair. Why does this stuff always happen to me anyways? I wanted to find a hole, crawl in it, and pull the top in after me. Tears mixed with the chlorine in my eyes and stung even worse. A blurry person reached out over the edge of the pool and fished me in, wrapping a towel from who-knows-where around my shaking shoulders. I clutched it around myself and let my stringy wet hair cover my face and hide me away. I peeked out through the tendrils and met the steady eyes of my rescuer, who was the overseeing officer, and was quite obviously of Vulcan heritage. My human emotions took over and I glanced away quickly, biting my lip to keep from showing weakness in front of him. I failed quite miserably.

By that time our drill instructor had reinstituted law and order, directing me to wait in the locker room for him. I won't lie and say that I remained cool under pressure. I was shaking so badly I could barely stand up, let alone walk, and couldn't see because the tears I was holding back blurred my vision. My head pounded and body hurt too from all of my rough, smacking dives into the water. Overall, I was a nervous wreck, and the unfamiliar Vulcan escorted me from the gymnasium wordlessly, saying only "Lieutenant" to my instructor as he passed.

I managed to get halfway down the hallway before I started crying, and once I started I couldn't seem to shut the floodgates. It started as small sniffles, but by the time I got to the locker room I was doubled over and collapsed forward once I sat on the cold metal bench, sobbing violently into my knees. I eventually ran out of tears and wasn't shaking as much, except from being cold. The officer was sitting beside me calmly on the bench, watching me with an expression of mild interest that I recognized as my own on many other occasions. He glanced away to look straight ahead emotionlessly once he noticed me looking.

"Are you feeling recovered Cadet Battaglia?" he asked in a quick and neutral tone, unblinking.

I nodded after a second's delay taken to register him speaking. "I'm feeling really stupid," I honestly admitted, my voice raspy after sobbing my eyes out. My head felt too light and my body too heavy. He offered me a fresh towel and I wrapped it tightly around my partially exposed body and pushed thick strands of chlorine filled hair out of my face as I wiped my eyes and nose with my water-wrinkled hand. "God, I'm pathetic," I wetly muttered under my breath, cheeks burning bright red.

"I may assure you that you are one of the farthest things from pathetic, Cadet," he said in the same emotionless manner, only in a lower tone. I shook my head fervently in disagreement until he caught my chin in his hand and held it there. He was very strong, a trait I shared from our common ancestry, and was able to hold it there. "You are currently upset and are currently unable to see the logic of my statements."

"I shouldn't get so upset over something so trivial," I mumbled as the officer sat comfortably next to me. "Shouldn't let it bother me. Should be stronger."

He paused to look straight ahead for a moment, like he was considering what to say. "You are only human." He turned and met my eyes with an unfathomable expression that stilled my oddly swirling thoughts immediately. The reason that I felt so drawn to my fellow Vulcan was illogical, but I found myself enveloped in peacefulness that I had never experienced before, if only for an instant.

That was the moment our drill instructor took to interrupt us, opening the door with a squelching bang. "Commander Spock, you may leave while I deal with Cadet Battaglia."

"Thank you, Lieutenant; however, I would prefer to stay," Spock responded immediately in a flat, computer-like tone. "Please continue."

"Ensign Smith declared the incident was provoked by verbal insults, and wishes to file a report against you," Ramirez said in a caring yet firm voice. I opened my mouth, then thought better of it and closed my protests. "Cadet witnesses of the entire incident confirm this opinion, and that despite Ensign Smith's visible offense to these insults, you continued to verbally slander her until she physically attacked you."

Well, it was pretty much the story from an outsider's point of view. I could feel the human parts of me bristling, but I forced them away in a practiced, cool sweep that I usually reserve for my work as a scientist.

"I do not deny these accusations," I said, my voice coming out strong and confident. I was rather pleased with myself, seeing as I felt anything but. Other than that, I got off easy from Lt. Ramirez, and simply had the doom of a complaint report dangling over my head, which could ruin my chances at a good assignment after graduation. Both officers left, Spock's cold gaze evenly meeting mine in an entirely different, guarded manner for a last time, and I had completely stopped shaking by the time I heard their footsteps fade. I stood up and crossed the row to my locker, prying it open and pulling out my uniform. I scolded myself for thinking he appeared guarded, Commander Spock was a Vulcan, and would not feel any emotions, only logic. My body was beginning to warm up, and I wanted to get the stench of chlorine out of my mouth.

A little knock sounded at the door, and it opened. Chekov's head appeared and I smiled as he let himself hover in the doorway before our classmates arrived. I did not ask how he snuck out of class, but I related the discussion of the incident to him anyways. He sat in a comfortable way next to me, and was overly concerned about my health.

"You should go," I told Chekov offhandedly when I finished. He hadn't moved an inch, and looked at me in surprise. "This _is_ a girls' locker room."

He looked taken aback for a moment, then openly laughed. "I will wait for ju," he said, eyes sparkling and returning to good humor as he quickly left. I took forever in the shower, enjoying the absence of my fellow cadets, and my thoughts churned unpleasantly in a disorder that I was unaccustomed to and intensely disliked. Clarissa, my analytical chemistry paper, Specimen, those stupid advanced theoretical physics problems, Chekov, his sandwich wrapper lurking in my bag, the new bruise on my thigh just high enough to be irritating but too low for my skirt to cover, my humiliating introduction to Commander Spock, the strange and strong reaction I had to his presence, and my physical and mental exhaustion were all jumbled up and I couldn't seem to sort them out like the scientist I was. Maybe I hit my head on the bottom of the pool. Maybe my brain was going to explode. Maybe I was going to be expelled from the Academy, seeing as this was the last offense I could make before expulsion according to standard procedure.

"Uunggh," I groaned unnecessarily loud as I yanked the stupid uniform over my head, brushed my hair quickly over my slightly pointed ears (courtesy of my Vulcan paternal grandfather, although I am everything but logical lately) and bent down to pull on my boots after slamming the locker shut with unnecessary strength, wishing that taking out anger on inanimate objects was more satisfying.

"Eye heard zhat!" Chekov yelled, slightly muffled, from the outside corridor.

"Coming!" I called, and stumbled out the door while tugging on my right boot until I fell over, and Chekov had to fix it.

"Zhe zipper, it always jams," he explained, waving one of his hands around and avoiding my eyes as he pulled me to my feet, took my hand, and departed quicker than I could trip over myself again. Needless to say, we did not return to class. Also needless to say, I punched Clarissa Smith in the nose at dinner, and her complaint charges were dropped the next day.


	2. Chapter 2

The Scientist

After finishing another grueling week of classes, sleepless nights and sleep filled lectures, I strangely felt rather perky and alert, albeit lightheaded and the general feeling that I was floating weirdly outside my body as it operated on other things. I made no further useful observations of Specimen, and my valiant efforts to understand mankind came to no fruition thus far, and in fact were only further bewildered by Chekov's strange behavior in the girls' locker room. Wow, that sentence looks weird when written out in my PADD. Anyways, disregard personal comment. Commander Spock's behavior was irrelevant to my study due to his logical nature, and only served to confuse me as I pursued total understanding of masculine nature. Therefore, I decided to obtain a second opinion.

"You _what?_" Dr. Leonard McCoy incredulously snapped in his usual grumpy, ill mannered Southern drawl after I related the most significant events of the whole pool incident to him. I was perched on a white examining table in the Academy clinic, surrounded by other busy doctors and nurses and sick students as he cleaned and bandaged a cut on my arm from the scalpel I dropped in xenobiology. "I don't know what's more disturbing, you calling Jim 'Specimen' or that Russian kid's blatant…ugh! I have _patients_, Carly, people who are actually _sick_ and need_ help_."

"I _am_ wounded," I snapped, feeling miffed at his disregard for my constant self-induced physical maladies, pointing at my scalpel cut that he had finished patching up a few minutes prior. Not to mention my wounded ego, due to Commander Spock. "I'm _always_ wounded."

"Sorry, kid, I didn't think," Bones said, the closest I would ever get to an apology from him. "I can probably spare a few minutes."

"Besides, I'm your favorite quarter-Vulcan!" I brightly chirped, swinging my short, thin legs back and forth on the table. I heard him mutter "You're my only quarter-Vulcan," under his breath darkly. However, I was happy. Fourth-year cadets were allowed to wear civilian dress on Saturday if they planned to leave the Academy, and I was wearing jeans and a turquoise t-shirt. Bones grumbled under his breath about "damn cheerful people" as he whipped the curtain around the clinic diagnosis bed shut to give us a tiny degree of privacy. "I've been feeling lightheaded lately also. Isn't that quaint?"

McCoy glared at me in disbelief. "_Quaint? _I…never mind. Are you feeling faint right now?" he asked, and I shook my head. "You started feeling dizzy at lunch on Tuesday, correct?" I nodded. "Let me guess, you were really_, really _dizzy while you were with Chekov after your drill class?"

"Yes, but I don't see the object of these questions," I said. I thought I knew all possible questions Bones could ask me in a medical situation by now.

"Here's my advice," he said, scrawling something on his prescription pad, ripping it off, and throwing it at me with an irritated look as he left the room and slammed the door behind him. I looked at it, and my mouth opened in angry shock.

It read: **OPEN YOUR EYES.**

I hurled myself to my feet and snatched the curtain open so hard it practically banged off its hinges. "You're a doctor, not a psychologist!" I shouted at McCoy's back as he walked away from me. He waved his clipboard over his shoulder in disregard for me, and I stomped my foot angrily into the tile. I crossed the campus from the medical building to the dormitory for cadets and punched my code in so hard the little number keys got stuck and I had to punch the whole thing to get it to work a second time. I typed the code wrong too, I was so flustered. Who did he think he was, telling me something like that? I pressed the button to slide the door shut behind me, and turned around to be faced by Clarissa and Specimen, entangled on her bed.

"Carly!" Specimen blurted out, and I chucked McCoy's stupid diagnosis on my desk, scattering the mound of late homework and sticky notes from Chekov telling me to do it. I grabbed my standard issue white jacket and data pad, tucking the former into my considerably lighter bag; I had emptied it this morning. I needed to take notes on this occurrence, no matter how much it infuriated me.

"Oh, save it," I viciously snarled, not sure who exactly I was rather uncharacteristically yelling at, and stormed out. I couldn't get any peace, not even in my own freaking room! Clarissa being a general slut was nothing new, but for some reason Specimen's presence in her bed caused me particular offense. I had wanted to yell "He was my friend first!" The late afternoon air was fresh and clear compared to the stuffy confinement of the clinic, the musty scent of the library or my dormitory, and I decided to walk to the Golden Gate Park to sulk instead of stick around campus, waiting for Dr. McCoy to come and chide me about human relationships more. He said it was for my own good that he was a little mean, like I needed a parent at the school since I was so young and my alien Vulcan blood often muddled my human emotions and I was so far away from home and the Mars colony, but I was sick of it. It's my life anyway, isn't it? Not really any of his business.

Being angry was easy and felt good, but my storm lost its thunder the farther I got away from the Academy. Downtown San Francisco felt foreign and lonely, and I couldn't even bring myself to buy a doughnut from the street vendor. It even had white frosting and sprinkles. Now that's saying something.

I paid the dumb fee to get into the park, and shambled along the water's edge by the rocks under the bridge for a long time. It was cool and windy, but my thoughts remained as tangled as my windblown hair long after I missed dinner. I hauled my freezing ass back up the rocky hill, then stood by the legal part of the shore on the smooth grass. It was just as windy, and I could see the stars opening up like diamonds scattered across a black velvet blanket in front of me. Words cannot describe how breathtaking the night sky is, one must simply experience it for themselves.

"I thought I vould find ju here!" Chekov exclaimed from behind me, walking up behind me. _McCoy_, I bitterly thought. No one else knew I came here sometimes. Then again, Chekov had a talent for finding out or guessing every little secret about me. He was even smiling _my_ smile, the crooked one.

"Hey," I replied quietly, halfheartedly attempting to return the favor. I failed, and Chekov's smile slid sideways to the left at a thirty degree angle off his face.

"Oh, now zat is not a smile," he chided playfully, standing beside me and pulling his hands out of his pockets to try and fix it by turning the corners of my mouth upwards with his fingers. Eventually, he got a laugh out of me. "Ah, much better."

The laugh faded, and a small smile remained on my face. Chekov has this happy-go-lucky aura around him, and he kind of infects even the gloomiest of gloom-balls, such as myself. I couldn't see his expression, it was too dark. "How'd you know where to find me?" I asked, my fondness for him burning away my dark mood.

"Lucky guess," he offhandedly answered, and I saw his shoulders move in a shrug against the shimmering light of the city reflected off the water. He took my arm and wrapped it securely through his and started to walk. Apparently we were going for a walk. "Let's go for a valk."

Really? Never would have guessed. "Hopefully not a trip," I remarked, turning to playfully smile at him. Pavel chuckled, and pulled me against him with a one-armed hug. It was the only one I've gotten since Tuesday. Nobody hugs me except him. _Gloom_.

"Not if I have anything to say about eet," he teased, and to prove his point picked me up by the waist and set me down on the other side of a crack in the sidewalk before crossing the dangerous chasm himself. I laughed loudly, willing myself to be happy for him, even though I was probably going to make an ass of myself in the process.

"Oh thank you, brave sir knight," I sarcastically gushed. He repeated the procedure when we encountered a puddle on the side of a road. "For I would not know how to survive without your gallant selflessness, honor, and…" I had run out of adjectives. Pavel waved a hand expectantly. "Erm…chastity."

"Vhat?" he choked out before we looked at each other in the background light of the headlights and burst out laughing.

"I don't know!" I snorted, practically dying with hysterical giggles as we leaned on each other as we staggered back to the Academy. He tripped on a curb when we crossed the street, and I actually fell to my knees on the sidewalk cackling, and he joined me, despite the fact that we were surrounded by regular people giving us very strange looks. Our walk back to the Academy was full of many more spills, inappropriate remarks, and we actually rolled down a hill together at one point. I actually tripped over myself trying to run down it, and Pavel purposely threw himself on the ground and followed to make me feel better.

"Oh my God, stop making me laugh," I gasped before collapsing in a heap of giggles on top of my breathless friend as we stopped to rest at the edge of the Academy property under a familiar tree I had passed many times on the way to quantum mechanics but never stopped to appreciate. It was too good of a night to end here, but the laughter eventually subsided.

"Come," Pavel said in his silly Russian accent I loved so dearly, and I scooted to sit next to him under the tree. "Look at ze stars."

I turned my eyes to the heavens, and my breath was taken away. The sky was clearer than before, and I could see not just every planet and star but the Milky Way, spiraling beautifully across the sky like a chandelier made of the most precious crystal known to the universe. I don't remember ever really looking at the stars before, and I must have sat there for an hour in open mouthed wonder. Maybe I had looked at them before, but without really seeing them.

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," I finally whispered, leaning against the tree beside my friend and tilting my head back, eyes and mind overwhelmed with all of their logic thrown out the window.

"Almost," Pavel softly said beside me, and I could feel his eyes on me in the darkness for a second before he turned his attention to the sky, and started pointing out constellations. "Look, zat's Orion. And zat ees Lyra."

"I don't see it," I curiously said, eager to learn and understand. I was at a heavy disadvantage having no knowledge of these earthly constellations and being at a strange angle from Chekov I couldn't see exactly where he was pointing. I only knew the stars as seen from the orientation of the Mars colony.

"Here," he quietly said, laughing at my distress, and he pulled me across the grass to sit in front of him, then wrapped an arm around my waist to pull me back to sit between his legs. My cheeks burned in the darkness, and I pulled my knees to my chest, my body tense. He pulled one arm from around my waist to point to the stars over my shoulder, and whispered their names and stories about them I had never heard in my ear. Some of them he only knew in Russian, but I liked those the best, and I relaxed into him, and our bodies curled together like they had been meant to be that way since the beginning of time. Pavel's voice was like a lullaby, and his funny Russian stories like an exotic drug that banished every worry from my mind as he held me beneath the night sky until dawn broke.


	3. Chapter 3

The Scientist

Summer faded away at Starfleet Academy and the chill of late autumn and winter swept across the sweeping grass quadrangle between the tall, beautiful buildings of knowledge and learning. I turned in my monthly examination for my physics class early and left, happy to have a break from my usually long and tedious class. I picked up my heavy bookbag and meandered over to a bench outside the dormitory building. It was impossible to study with Clarissa (or her flavor of the week) moaning in his or her sleep, so I regularly occupy the bench next to the barely sustained student garden. At least the night was moderately warm, but I wasn't certain where I'd camp out during the winter since the library closed at eight. I pulled out my data pad and vigorously attacked a particularly troubling transporter theory problem, only to come to the obnoxious answer of 'Cannot be solved.'

Night had fallen while I sat by myself, and the only light in the dark garden was the softly glowing digital screen of the touch-sensitive data pad. Looking at the light reflection on the screen, I braided my dark hair over a shoulder and adjusted my standard red jacket before getting to my feet and heading inside to catch a few hours of sleep before enjoying my one day off from specialized combat. I punched the code in the keypad for my shared room, only to have it blink _access denied_.

"Whaaaat?" I murmured under my breath before putting my rusty engineering skills to use and discovering my roommate had done the electronic equivalent of locking me out. Then I found the pink sticky-note on the door that explained that this was retribution for borrowing her clothes without asking last weekend to go on shore leave with Pavel to the beach in Los Angeles. "Not fair!"

I paced back and forth, wondering what to do. Forcing the door to open mechanically would only generate more ill sentiments from Clarissa, but I wasn't particularly eager about another sleepless night. I heard a group of other cadets enter the building and disperse throughout the hallway, and I did my best to look like I was casually fumbling through my bag instead of bemoaning my hatred of my roommate.

"Carly? Vhat are ju doing?" Chekov was standing at the end of the hallway, holding a pile of library books and looking a little confused as I dropped my data pad I was faking being busy on, rapidly picked it up again, and continued to fidget with it.

"Oh, you know, just the usual," I responded nonchalantly as a few other cadets brushed past me on the way to their quarters. "What are _you_ doing?"

"I vas vorking on a physics project vith my study group," he answered, sounding peeved at me trying to accuse him. He stood there, watching me and looking faintly amused as I punched the code in again, trying not to look like an idiot.

"Oh, I wonder why it's doing that," I flippantly remarked, letting out an unnatural giggle that sounded too girlish. Chekov's eyebrows shot up higher.

"Did jour roommate lock ju out?" he guessed, looking at me with pity, and I confessed my situation to him, including the part about the clothes I took.

"And they weren't even that cute," I finished the story lamely. By that time we were both sitting on the floor in the silent hallway, sharing packaged crackers that Pavel had in his bag. The lights automatically kicked off partially, marking midnight.

"Well, zat's new," Chekov curiously said, peering up at the lights.

"Oh, no, they do that at midnight to save power," I immediately answered, and Pavel raised his eyebrows. "Believe me, this isn't the first time I've spent the night in a hallway."

My friend's face looked stunned at the thought that I had been sleeping on a pile of books in a hallway while he lay cozy in his bed with his nice, comfortably messy humanoid (except for the violet skin and yellow eyes) roommate, Lucas (we can't pronounce his real name, but we abbreviate it to Lucas, which sounds like it, more or less). "Zat's 'orrible! Come on, right now!"

I let my friend pull me to my feet and drag me down a few identical twisting corridors, and he punched in the code on one of the doors. It slithered open to reveal a room in contained disarray. The desks were cluttered, but the closet could shut. There was a large pile of what I took to be dirty laundry, but the center of the floor was clean, and didn't have a red tape line marking the center.

"Oh, no, Pavel, I can't spend the night in your room!" I protested, feeling extremely uncomfortable as the automatic door rammed into my shoulder, trying to slide shut as I stood there dumbly. "I'm completely intruding, I can sleep on the couch in the mess hall! I should work on that physics paper anyways."

He kept insisting, and the automatic door kept trying to shut on us as we argued in the doorway until a student from across the hall poked his head out and told us to shut up. I was surprised by the outburst and Chekov grabbed my elbow and dragged me inside before I could fight back, which I did on a matter of principle after the door closed, and wrestled him easily to the floor, being much physically stronger due to my green Vulcan blood.

"Ju made jour point," he gasped as I applied pressure to his ribcage before getting up and offering my disoriented friend a hand. He was panting and stood doubled over, and glared at me after observing that I wasn't even winded. "Small but wicious."

I uncertainly hovered on the threshold. My friend certainly couldn't stop me from leaving, and probably wouldn't try after our latest fight. In fact, he looked a little hurt as he stood about a foot away from me. I looked at the ground, seriously not wanting to meet his eyes.

"Sorry," I muttered, and Chekov reached across to hand me my hair tie. My braid had fallen apart when I attacked him. I reached out and snagged it from his long fingers, fiddling with it nervously, then wound it around my wrist. "No hard feelings?"

"Newver," he solemnly replied, but I was still afraid he was mad at me. He had seen me practice hand-to-hand combat before, but it was the first time I got angry and physically attacked him. Now that I'd got what I wanted, I didn't want to leave either. A Vulcan's strength but none of a Vulcan's common sense.

"Lucas won't mind if I stay the night?" I quietly asked, and Chekov's face broke into a grin.

"Naw, his species doesn't ewen sleep!" I looked around closer in the dim room and observed that there wasn't a bed for the other cadet, only a desk with a comfortable looking chair and a dresser. "He spends ze night een ze mess hall. He doesn't like to keep me awake."

"That's considerate," I replied in surprise, and deposited my book bag on the floor near the door and sat down on the edge of Chekov's bed, realizing how tired I was as I leaned backward to rest my back against the wall. My friend sat in a similar fashion beside me, and we talked about vegetarian versus regular lasagna for a while until he noticed I was stifling yawns every other sentence.

"Here," he quickly said, and gave me a white t-shirt and running shorts that looked like his. "Ju can't sleep in jour uniform, eet itches," he said, thinking that was why I was looking at him like he was crazy, when I am in fact very familiar with the itchy wool-polyester blend of the red cadet uniform. I stared harder at him. This was getting awkward. "Oh! Allwight, allwight, I'll turn around…"

I laughed as Chekov turned the opposite way on the bed and covered his eyes dramatically while I changed. His clothes were only a little big on me, but felt comfortable, and I flopped face-forward on the bed in exhaustion while he changed, returning the favor politely. It didn't matter, I could barely keep my eyes open anymore.

But I might as well have been stuck with an electric wire and jolted awake when my friend crawled in next to me and struggled to share the one person pillow. After uncomfortably fighting for it, I settled for a corner, curling up on my side facing the wall and surrendering the rest to him, trying to keep a few respectful inches away, but as always, Chekov has no concept of personal space and kept edging closer. It _was_ his room, after all, so I tried to keep my distance. Still couldn't sleep. I started counting imaginary sheep, even though I've never seen a sheep before, except in books.

"Eye don't bite."

I peeked over my shoulder, regarding the dark shape of my best friend through half-open eyes. I mumbled something incoherent in reply, telling him he could have the stupid pillow and shoving it blearily at him. He laughed sleepily, then slipped an arm around my waist and drew me up next to him, finally deciding to share nicely. _Maybe a little too nicely_, I thought dreamily as he curled his body around mine in a warm envelope, my heart skittering faster for a second. I closed my eyes and dreamed of stars, only space was much warmer than I expected.

I woke up snuggled tightly to Chekov's thin chest, his breathing slow and steady as he slept soundly beside me. Sunlight filtered through the partially closed blinds covering the window above my face, illuminating the opposite wall in thin bands. I closed my eyes again and slowed my breathing to match my friend's and lightly dozed as the sun rose higher, the patches of sunlight eventually shining across his pale face.

Feeling my friend stir in his sleep, I rolled over in his arms and nestled my head in the crook of his neck, deciding that was my favorite spot on him as I rested my hand on his heart, gently stroking the spot with my thumb before stopping myself as I felt him wake up.

"Good morning," I quietly murmured as he groggily blinked, looking slightly confused for a second before he apparently remembered what I was doing here and smiled, relaxing as we enjoyed each other's company and warmth. I felt like I was on my own little cloud of happiness, on a totally new level of contentment when he held me tightly and I let my guard down for a while, nuzzling my face unexpectedly against his neck. I was warm, well fed, rested, and had the best friend I could wish for, all of these things I lacked for the majority of my life.

Once the sun no longer illuminated our bed, Chekov crawled out and made coffee for us with the little machine on the other side of the room and dug out a large container of room temperature noodles from under a pile of papers on his roommate's desk that we shared for breakfast. I was thrilled that he was allowed to keep food inside his dormitory (it was one of Clarissa's forbidden rules), and we sat there smiling happily at each other through mouthfuls of noodles for a few hours, snacking as we played two-player cards, swapped homework and did each other's, and talked about nothing and everything like we always did when we were alone.

"How long d'you think we can spend in here before they send up a search party?" I playfully asked Chekov as we played rock-paper-scissors for the last bite of food.

"Hopefully, forewer," he answered with a smile, winning round three fair and square. Instead of taking the last bit for himself, after hesitating for a moment he leaned forward on the bed, holding out the spoon for me. I felt extremely special as I accepted and allowed him to feed it to me, both of us laughing as I had to slurp the last bit.

His roommate chose that moment to visit and gather his remaining homework, regarding us with a vague, unfocused stare that was identical to the one he gave us when passing on a walk between classes. He told me when we first met he liked my pointy Vulcan ears, and was very interested about the psychological effects of being raised by my human mother and step-father whenever we talked.

I proceeded to my classes for the day, the highlight of which was my advanced combat training that a superior officer who "wished to remain anonymous" according to Lieutenant Ramirez, recommended me for. I was just happy to get out of my last class with Clarissa and into one where people actually seemed to genuinely like me and didn't really mind that I could be a bit of a hazard. I took particular interest in Vulcan martial arts, which I had a natural affinity for, and excelled in almost as much as I did in science and biology.

Clarissa locked me out for a total of three more days, all of which I spent sleeping with Chekov until I gave up, skipped class to mechanically break in, and moved my few belongings to my friend's dormitory. I had had enough, and could care less what she told the rest of the Academy about me. I inevitably became more productive under my friend's influence, and my grades reflected the change in my usually absentminded behavior and I began to excel in my science. My ongoing attempt to understand my male counterparts was temporarily abandoned upon my promotion to Ensign midwinter; however it was reopened when I was assigned to the _Enterprise_ at the end of the year upon graduation to my inexplicable pleasure.

"_YES!" _I shouted at the top of my lungs as I jumped out of my seat at the final Academy Assembly after we received our graduation diplomas and our names and assignments were read off. Everyone, including the superior officers and several hundred graduating cadets, swiveled around in their seats to stare blankly at me and the person reading off the list paused in disbelief as I falcon-punched the air before slinking back down into my chair, face hot and red. "Er, sorry…" I trailed off, and the ceremony continued, uninterrupted.

Chekov kept his previous assignment as a high level tactical officer and got to sit on the bridge at the helm, and when I reported for duty three days later I was shocked to hear that I wasn't at the ultimate bottom of the command chain, and I was actually ten down from Chief Science Officer. I was rather anxious to meet my commanding officer, since he was the only other Vulcan currently in the fleet, although I heard there were several enrolling at the Academy now, encouraged by Spock's success.

"What have you heard about Commander Spock?" I anxiously asked another Ensign who had been on the maiden voyage of the _Enterprise_, not that he liked to rub it in or talk about it every ten seconds or anything. His name was Ryan West and he was four years older than me, although he held a lower position as a researcher rather than a field scientist.

Ryan frowned like he wondered why I was asking, and shrugged before he answered. "Spock…well, you'll get used to him. Eventually." He exchanged a glance with another older officer and the whole group of them started to laugh and slapped me on the back.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I protested vainly, feeling slightly panicked in a room full of people at least five years older than me that I was supposed to be commanding. So far, I hadn't caused anything cataclysmic.

"Well, let's get to work while we wait for him," Lieutenant Carl Green, the second highest science officer, finally finished, putting the researchers to work on making sure the warp drive was ready for flight, and I got the lovely job of making sense of the mess of data we had about neighboring black holes and how far a berth we had to give them. It was a job the Second Science Officer was supposed to do, but Green was apparently a lazy officer and would rather boss other people around instead of actually do it.

"Stupid chauvinistic beasts," I muttered under my breath, pushing my short black hair behind a small, pointed ear as I bent over my calculations, taking mental notes on how many men seem to enjoy feeling superior as Green gloated about his promotion to Lieutenant after what I guessed to be roughly seven years serving as a low-end Ensign. Personally, I thought he still belonged there judging by his current behavior.

My computer station was a work of art like the rest of the ship, pearly white and gleaming, ready for anything, including time-traveling Romulans bent on the destruction of Earth. I couldn't help but wonder what would come next for the infamous Captain Kirk, who I had yet to see in action. Then again, unless by some freak accident in which I replaced Spock on the bridge, I never would see Kirk in action.

I dimly realized that the doors on the opposite side of the operating research lab slithered open and the bawdy chatter from my counterparts ceased and became strictly professional. I was engrossed in my work, only thinking about how I could possibly figure out all the algorithms in the eleven minutes before take-off.

Footsteps sounded clearly as someone prowled around the room, stopping behind me, and I felt the uncomfortable sensation that occurs when someone unfamiliar attempts to read over your shoulder. My fingers twitched and gripped my stylus tighter, causing the plastic to creak as I resisted the urge to snarl at whoever it was to back off, hoping my tense body language would get the message across. Silence reigned behind me, and I looked suspiciously over my shoulder, squarely meeting the unmistakable slanted, dark eyes of my Vulcan counterpart, Commander Spock. I recalled our embarrassing encounter at the pool before I was transferred to advanced combat, and worked furiously to keep myself calm and appear natural.

"Ensign Battaglia, report," he smoothly said, and I scrambled to my feet (without tripping, thank you very much) and snapped to attention, looking at his thin, slanted eyebrows instead of subjecting myself to the uncomfortable sensation of his eyes again, no matter how much I secretly wanted to stare at them.

"Working on the necessary black hole calculations before our route to Targus Five is set in, sir," I replied, mimicking his Vulcan tone to the best of my ability, hoping to impress him and set a clear image of who I was in the minds of my fellows. They did not need to know that I was much more human than I appear, they only needed to know that I was their superior officer as appointed by Spock and therefore Captain Kirk himself, and that I had displayed remarkable aptitude for my job consistently at the Academy.

"Those calculations are vital to the operation of this starship and are assigned only to the topmost science officers, Lieutenant Green," Spock tonelessly said, turning to face the red-faced man who irritated me so much in the short time I had known him. "Since Ensign Battaglia's work is flawless, she will be replacing you as Second Science Officer, since you obviously do not wish to perform the necessary tasks for your position. At ease."

I practically fell sideways into my console, and Green's face went from red to purple as he glared at me over Spock's slim shoulder. With that, Spock glided away across the spotless floor and proceeded in the direction of the bridge, leaving his entire department speechless in his wake. I had no idea what to think. Spock just promoted me eight levels to a position of direct command, and I had only been on the ship for an hour. I hadn't even seen my quarters yet, and I was going to get bigger ones. My head was actually ringing and I felt a bit dizzy as I pressed the sequence of buttons to send my 'flawless' calculations to the bridge and was subjected to the gawking stares of my new subordinates as I tried to walk across the room to continue my list of new assignments, felt my legs gradually turn to jelly, and promptly fainted.


	4. Chapter 4

The Scientist

When I came to I was laying supine in what I took to be the _Enterprise_'s hospital, staring up at the stainless steel ceiling.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!_ I screamed in my head, and sat up abruptly, ignoring the nurse squawking like a mother hen as I shoved her away as she ran off, yelling for my doctor, who I already knew to be Dr. McCoy. I got my legs swiveled around and was trying to stand up and get back to my brand-spanking-new station on the research deck despite my pounding head when a small cluster of people burst through the door of the private room I had been lying in, not knowing how I got there.

"And where do you think you're going?" McCoy growled at me, shoving me back down and clamping a restraint to my wrist and wrestling for the other one. I used my knee to keep him at bay. "Dammit, Ensign, I'm trying to help you!"

"Man, if I knew I was going to be getting some entertainment, I'd have replicated some popcorn!" a jovial voice boomed behind Dr. McCoy, and to my dismay I spotted Specimen hovering behind my attacker's shoulder. He noticed my glare and grinned. "Congratulations, Ensign, you're officially the first casualty in the line of duty! And I thought I wouldn't have anything interesting to put in my captain's log for a few days!"

"Well, you obviously missed her promotion," another man said sourly, and I turned my head quickly and recognized Ensign Ryan West standing at my bedside, who proceeded to relate the reason of my passing out to the laughing Captain as McCoy finally clamped the other arm restraint on.

"He dragged you in here," McCoy informed me, jerking a thumb at Ryan. I wanted to crawl in a hole, but took a deep breath and forced myself to remain calm and logical, if you will. It was time I started acting my position. "You okay, Carly?"

"Yes, I'm recovering," I replied quickly, and I noticed McCoy blink and raise his eyebrows as I adjusted my tone. "I think I should go back to my station now, sir."

"I don't think that's a good idea…" McCoy's idea was quickly interrupted by the entrance of another officer who entered through the automatic doors to sickbay. It was Spock. I made an effort not to gulp.

"I expressly forbid you from returning to your station in Research before Dr. McCoy has made a full assessment of your condition, Ensign," Spock mechanically interrupted, and the only thing that betrayed me was the light red flush that spread across my cheekbones. His eyes shifted to Ryan. "Ensign West, I do not recall you suffering injury in the incident."

Ryan clenched his fists. "No, sir. I'll be back at my post in no time, sir."

"I need to get back to the bridge, have fun, Commander," Kirk said in the exact opposite tone of Spock, slapping the other man on the shoulder. I fought back a snicker as I noticed the tiniest twitch of irritation on Spock's left eye. Bones proceeded to poke and prod at me with various instruments, recording their results in an illegible scrawl before shoving them off on a young, blonde nurse, who glanced at them, then sighed and rubbed her temples while walking away.

"Well, Carly, everything checks out okay, but you should probably rest for a while before you go back. I want to make sure you don't have a concussion or anything," McCoy grumbled, then stormed off to help the nurse decipher his handwriting. I was left in uncomfortable silence with Commander Spock.

It wouldn't have been so uncomfortable if he didn't sit there just staring at me. Not blinking. Not even appearing to breathe. He could have been a marble statue, just sitting there in the chair by my bedside, sculpted by Michelangelo himself. I couldn't even fathom what he was thinking about. After precisely thirty minutes of Spock staring at me without blinking, he got up and departed, leaving me with a new list of complicated assignments, including what rank of officers they should be assigned to, and which I should do myself, all written in handwriting that might as well have been typed on a PADD.

_Men_, I bitterly thought as I trekked across the ship from Sickbay to Science, focusing on the tasks at hand rather than my own ineptitude.

My superiority was not immediately recognized among the Science Department, but I worked tirelessly on earning the respect of my fellows. I had a feeling it would take a major assignment to convince them otherwise. On the bright side, while I had not seen Chekov in a couple days, I had made a new friend in Ensign Ryan West, who took me to sickbay.

"You sure you shouldn't be replicating a salad? You were a little heavy to carry, you know," Ryan teased me as we made food for lunch. I punched him lightly on the arm after I collected my tray with a large cheeseburger on it. We selected seats at one of the smaller tables to the side of the cafeteria, and I could almost feel my mitochondria recharging inside my cells.

"So, what's with you and Pointy-Ears lately? He couldn't keep his eyes off you in Sickbay," Ryan began in his usual loud tone, and I glared at him as he grinned wolfishly.

"First of all, his name is Commander Spock, and as your superior officer I remind you to address him as such. And second, I do not know what sort of a relationship you are implying between the Commander and I, but none exists other than a professional, mutual respect for each other and our abilities as scientists," I replied, my words getting rushed and slightly jumbled at the end. Ryan looked amused.

"He _liiiikes _you," Ryan teased in a sing song voice.

I rolled my eyes, and blushed a little. "He's a Vulcan, he can't possibly _like_ me. That's ridiculous."

"Vulcans repress their emotions, that doesn't mean they don't feel them," Ryan told me, and I frowned a little.

"I know that," I said, scowling across the table at my companion. I was unused to eating with anyone other than Chekov, or interacting in a friendly manner with anyone other than him actually. It was a strange adjustment, I had grown so used to anticipating my best friend's thoughts and his absence weighed heavily on my mind. Meanwhile, I pointed at my own ears underneath my black ponytail. "I'm part Vulcan too, you know."

"Great! That's something you have in common! What a couple you'd make!" Ryan noisily clapped his hands together, looking overly excited. I wanted to smash my face into the table. "Well, that's unless you don't intend on going after that shrimpy tactical officer that's pining after you, what's his face, with the funny accent…"

"Pavel is _not _shrimpy! And he does not have a funny accent!" I practically shouted, standing up partway as I slammed my hand into the table, rattling our trays. I usually keep quite a good grasp on my emotions, but Ryan had figured out how to push my buttons and loved to do so. "What part of _superior officer _don't you understand?"

I glared in fury at my companion, and Ryan forced himself to try not to laugh at me and after I finished my meal we walked back to our stations in the main lab together. Everything was running smoothly for once in my life and Green was on break so I didn't have as much hassle as usual. I proceeded for the first time to take my reports on the known gravitational fields of the systems nearby us and their likeliness to interfere with our course to the bridge to Spock, and felt my level of anxiety rise as the elevator ascended to the bridge. I took a deep breath and smoothed my short blue skirt and straightened my Starfleet insignia and made sure that roughly 70% of my dark hair was bound out of my face before the convex doors slithered open and my eyes were dazzled by the shining light of command.

The bridge itself was immaculate, and a massive window across the opposite side of the room showed space flying past us as we traveled at approximately Warp Two. The lights on the many consoles blinked and flickered at their operators softly as they spoke in even, practiced tones to their fellows. Captain Kirk lounged casually in the center command chair, and Chekov and another man I did not recognize manned the navigation station. Both looked up momentarily from their focused work and offered me friendly smiles as I walked in front of them to Spock's station. Chekov chanced a tiny wave and his new friend elbowed him before hiding a grin behind his hand.

Spock was quite the opposite of the lighthearted duo as they talked cheerfully but quietly as they completed their work. He was hunched slightly over his keyboard, his dark eyes intense and dramatized by his steeply slanted eyebrows as he frowned. Spock's fingers flew at lightning pace over his keyboard, and my mind spun as I looked over his shoulder at the calculations that he was completing so quickly.

"Commander, I completed the calculations you requested," I evenly said, and Spock's eyes darted up to meet mine and I registered some element of surprise, however tiny. He was so engrossed in his work that he hadn't noticed me.

"Yes, Ensign, I've noticed something rather interesting about the radiation surrounding a nearby planetary system, it appears there's been some kind of disruption in the gravitation and I'm interested in your opinion on the matter…" Spock began, only to be interrupted by a woman's voice breaking the calm chatter of the bridge.

"Captain, I'm picking up a distress call from the _U.S.S. Constellation_," the communications officer from across the room said, swiveling around in her chair, her long and dark legs folding gracefully beneath her, her hair swooshing over her shoulder in a similar movement that would take me my entire life to master.

"Alert them to our response. Warp Six," Kirk abruptly snapped, directing us to the system Spock and I were about to examine. I turned to Spock, a question as to what I should do posed on my lips.

"Ensign, wait on the bridge," Spock quietly ordered me, and I nodded and remained standing beside him as he dictated orders to Science below us. I anxiously watched the space in front of us zoom past, wondering what would meet us at the end of our journey.

"Exiting Warp in three, two, one," Chekov's friend said clearly, and brought us out of warp abruptly. The ship jerked massively as we were blown back from the effect of some sort of massive destruction. I took a seat at the empty Science station beside Spock and joined him in conducting rapid gravity and life readings, although I did not need the calculations to tell me that the planet systems had been recently destroyed. How was the question that lingered on my mind.

"Captain, several planets have been destroyed," I informed Kirk, not even attempting to swivel as gracefully as the beautiful communications officer. I simply projected my voice and didn't even cease typing. I would make my Vulcan ancestors proud.

Kirk acknowledged me with a nod in the reflective surface of the monitors. "Captain, I've located the _Constellation_," the same communications officer said. "She's adrift and heavily damaged."

"Have a damage control team meet me in the transporter room," Specimen Kirk quickly replied, his demeanor sharply different from that which I observed all of the other times I have interacted with him. "Mr. Spock, Ensign Battaglia, come with me. Chekov, you have the bridge."

"Yes, Keptain," Chekov quickly replied as Kirk strode quickly from the room, several people from Security following him out as lower-ranking replacements rushed in. I felt on edge that I had been chosen, with Spock, to investigate the damaged vessel. I should have felt excited, ready to prove my worth, but all I felt ready to do was toss my cookies.

The landing party was made up of the Captain, Spock and I representing Science, several people from Security, and a man that I identified as Chief Engineer from his insignia, who introduced himself as Scotty in a heavy Scottish accent and only had time to shake my hand and offer a smile before we were ordered to stand still to be beamed.

"Dinne know that I invented this formula?" Scotty lightheartedly said to me as we were about to be beamed, and I laughed quietly and shook my head until Spock gave me an expressionless glance over his shoulder. I sobered up immediately, causing Scotty to laugh loudly as I felt the strange warmth and molecules twisting in space as I was beamed aboard the _Constellation_.

The ship was silent as we materialized in a hallway that I guessed to be somewhere near the bridge. It was empty, but I could smell the heavy scent of blood. The damage control team's hands fluttered immediately to their phasers at their waist and looked alertly around us. I realized to my embarrassment that I was the only one without a phaser. All I had was my science equipment and a tricorder.

"Lassie, search for life signs," Scotty muttered out of the corner of his mouth to me, obviously guessing that this was my first mission out in the field.

"Oh! Right," I gasped quietly, fumbling with the device's cover as I turned it on, the familiar little lights blinking at me as I whirled the knobs. I trailed behind Captain Kirk near the front of the group as we explored the area, finding only the dead. I gasped as it started making little noises and blinking faster.

"Captain, I'm picking up signs of a life-form!" I exclaimed a little too excitedly, following the trail slowly down a hallway. "It's coming from the auxiliary control room."

Kirk nodded. "Good work, Ensign. Scotty?"

"Aye, Captain," he responded, and stepped forward to press buttons on a little keypad next to the door, apparently breaking in. He got the job done in less than a minute, and it slid open, revealing a man slumped over one of the control panels. Kirk stepped forward immediately and checked the man's vitals, then hoisted him upright. The barely conscious man looked like the ship's commanding officer, and apparently the sole survivor as I fiddled with the tricorder, trying to pick up any other life signs and finding none.

"Commodore Decker," Kirk said, shaking the man's shoulder slightly as if to rouse him. The man moaned incoherently, and Spock knelt down next to him and started to perform routine medical procedures to help him.

"Captain," Scotty said, turning around from monitors filled with information on the ship. Kirk glanced up. "I checked the engines. The warp drive's a hopeless pile of junk."

"…attacking my ship," Decker murmured distantly and tried to move, only to have Spock prevent him from harming himself further. "They're attacking my… ship…"

"Commodore Decker," Kirk asked calmly. "What happened?"

"Right out of hell! I saw it!" he abruptly shouted in confusion, apparently describing whatever attacked the ship as he slowly returned to awareness.

"Matt, where's you crew?" Kirk asked.

"On the third planet," the Commodore said, blinking and shaking his head as if to clear it.

"Captain, there is no third planet," I quietly interrupted, Kirk glancing at me.

"Don't you think I know that?" Decker shouted angrily at me. I wanted to take a step backwards, but I forced myself to remain still. "There was, but not anymore!"

"Ensign, access the ship's logs," Spock neutrally ordered, not getting up from the floor as he knelt on one knee, using his own instruments to take readings on Decker's status. "Perhaps we will find an explanation there?"

"Yes, sir," I replied, and crossed the room to a command station and began accessing the files, occasionally hacking through password protected areas. After about five minutes, I accessed the most recent entries. My eyes widened as I rapidly absorbed the information recorded by Decker in the captain's log. The logs revealed that the ship investigated the break up of a planet and was soon attacked by an enormous machine with a conical shell miles in length with a giant opening at one end filled with sparkling energy. After the attack, Decker ordered his surviving crew to evacuate to the surface of a nearby planet, but to his horror the machine destroyed that world next. I reported this information in as neutral and calm a voice as possible to Kirk and Spock, who was now up off the floor and reading over my shoulder, close enough to make me uncomfortable.

"My hypothesis is that the machine breaks down planets into rubble, which it then consumes for fuel," Spock said immediately once I finished, and I frowned, miffed that I was unable to finish and analyze my findings. He pointed at a module on the monitor tracking the movements of the machine, tracing it with his long index finger. "Given its past trajectory, it is likely to have come form outside the galaxy."

"A doomsday machine," Kirk said, his voice a little in awe.

"Yes," Spock said, as if that finished the argument. Scotty whistled lowly.

"A what?" I added to the conversation, all eyes in the room turning to me. My face felt a little hot as it went pink.

"A device built to destroy both sides in a war," Kirk elaborated for me. His tone wasn't unkind, but it wasn't the lighthearted joking one I was used to. "Something like the old H-Bombs used to be. It was probably intended as a bluff or deterrent, not to be actually used, but activated nonetheless. _My_ theory is that it wiped out its builders long ago but it lives on indefinitely, fueled by the very planets it destroys."

"Oh, forget about your theories! That thing is on the way to the heart of our galaxy, what are you going to do about it?" Decker argued suddenly, much more awake than he had been previously.

I nodded a little, thinking thoughtfully. It was mind boggling to think of what sort of beings created such a machine, and I had to wonder what their world was like, wherever it used to exist. What could possibly drive a race to create such an abomination was beyond my mind, since I was born into the peace of the Federation and had never experienced war, other than occasional far away conflict with the Kligons and the tension with the elusive Romulan Empire.

"And given its present path, it's going to go through the most densely populated part of our galaxy," Spock finished, examining star charts on a portable computer.

Kirk had Decker beamed back to the Enterprise while he and Scotty remained on the destroyed ship, hoping to gather more information. After a security officer and I carried Decker into medical and deposited him with Dr. McCoy, I reported back to the bridge, where Spock had assumed Acting Captain as First Officer. On sight, he appointed me to his regular assignment. I felt rather uncomfortable as I settled down in Spock's seat and began collecting data around the ship, directing the search on decks below for the doomsday machine.

My instruments flared up suddenly as _something _entered my probes. I frantically typed and analyzed information on the monitors, and could come to no other conclusion.

"Commander, the machine is approaching," I informed him, and Spock's dark eyes intensified. "Mark, eight."

"Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet Command immediately."

The now-familiar communications officer spoke next. "It's generating some kind of interference. I can't make radio contact with Starfleet Command!" she said, a note of urgency in her voice.

"It's approaching, mark three," Chekov reported before I got the chance to, looking serious. "Commander, weapons locking!"

"Shields up!" Spock barely got the time to get the order out before the ship rocked from the impact of the attack. I lunged and clutched at one of the monitors and partially fell out of my chair, and as I scrambled back in I began getting frantic reports from Research below.

"Red alert," Spock ordered in his eternally neutral, calm voice as different officers shouted to be heard over each other into little microphones connecting to their various departments. "Return fire."

I watched the red photons shoot out from our ship and crash into the doomsday machine on the screen and quickly ran analytical tests on it immediately after. "Spock, our weapons are ineffective. The machine's hull is pure neutronium."

Another explosion rocked the bridge and I was knocked out of my chair and on to the floor as several other officers who were standing were also knocked from their feet and went sprawling with me. I watched the bridge doors slide open through the stars exploding across my field of vision, revealing Commodore Decker charging in, looking too haggard to be in his right mind. There was a crazed look in his eyes as he stepped over me as I scrambled on the floor, tangled up in a pile of other officers.

"Commander Spock, I am assuming control of the _Enterprise_," Decker ordered in a shout over the blaring siren of red alert. I finally picked myself up off the floor, only to be knocked into the railing surrounding the Captain's chair and fall under it with another impact, landing somewhere near Chekov's feet. Chekov and the ship's friendly navigator were both clutching to the console to prevent themselves from falling as they pressed buttons and monitors with one hand and clung to it with another.

"Commodore, you are in no condition to be walking, let alone assume command," Spock quickly replied.

"Starfleet regulation 189.67," Decker said, quoting something that was lost on me.

"What?" I frantically asked as Chekov spared a splitsecond from his frenzied tactical calculations and executions as he tried to keep the shields up to pull me to my feet.

"He's pulling rank!" the Asian helmsman shouted to me, then to the newly commanding Decker, "Shields at 40%!"

When I got to my feet Decker was sitting in the captain's chair and Spock was standing off to the side. I scrambled back over to the Science station to find that most of my instruments were inoperable and blinking uselessly up at me.

"Full attack! Fire everything!" Decker shouted, and Chekov and the navigator turned around to gape at him for a second.

"Commodore, the _Enterprise_'s weaponry is useless against the doomsday machine's pure neutronium hull," Spock informed the other man in a raised voice.

"I said full attack!" Decker yelled again, and with a grimace Chekov informed tactical and our ship blasted away at the machine to no visible effect as the photons exploded with fiery splashes on the enemy's hull. Then, to my horror, the power flickered and the ship began to lurch forward.

When the lights came back on and I looked out the window over the monitor I was clinging to and through my escaping tendrils of sweat-damp hair, I resisted the urge to scream. The doomsday machine had turned so its glowing maw was facing us.

"Sir, deflector shields are gone!" Chekov reported, working to compensate. "Implewenting emergency procedures."

"Severe casualties reported on decks three and four," Uhura announced as another explosion rocked the ship.

"They've locked a tractor beam on us!" I reported rapidly, not knowing if I should address Decker or Spock, fighting to keep in my chair, analyzing what information I still had.

"The warp engines are disabled from the full attack, I can't break free!" the helmsman informed us, sounding panicked as he wrenched the controls this way and that. I exchanged a glance of despair with Uhura across the room, who was helpless at her station, all communications jammed by the doomsday machine.

The ship jerked again as we were suddenly expelled from the tractor beam and drifted in space. I frantically gathered readings from the operable monitors, my fingers flying at a pace to rival Chekov's on the tactical board.

"Spock, the _Constellation _has partial phaser power and thrust control! They're drawing the doomsday machine away!" I exclaimed. True to my word, the great machine began to veer off in the viewscreen and about half the present officers sighed in momentary relief.

"Commodore Decker, I have received orders from Captain Kirk to relieve you of command as you are in no condition to give orders. Yield the bridge." Spock's tone was flat and neutral (isn't it always?) but there was something in the aura of intensity that surrounded him that conveyed to us that there was no doubt that he could make Decker yield the bridge.

"You're bluffing," Decker replied in disbelief as Spock seriously stared him down.

"Vulcans never bluff," Spock replied, pokerfaced.

After several intense minutes of silence, Decker gave in and was escorted off the bridge by security, Spock immediately planting himself in the command chair. I tried not to swoon.

"Commander, security breach in the hanger bay!" a security officer urgently called across the room as the frenzy of activity resumed, the crew (including myself) encouraged and heartened by Spock's reassumed command. The man's eyes widened as he observed a security camera. "It's Decker! He knocked out his guard and he's stealing a shuttlecraft!"

"Close all hanger doors!" Spock ordered, and the red-faced officer and several others lunged at the controls.

"It's no use," he reported in defeat. "He's already taken off."

"Commander, he's piloting on a kamikaze course into that _thing's_ maw!" the navigator reported in a shout, and I turned my face from my gravitational readings to watch in horror as the tiny shuttlecraft zoomed at highspeed straight for the opening.

"Commodore Decker, turn back!" Spock ordered into the radio frequency Uhura opened for him, and I could hear Kirk giving the same orders from the _Constellation_. The little ship crashed into the planet-killer, exploding into a fiery inferno. There was a moment of stunned silence on the bridge as all eyes turned to Spock for orders.

"Ensign Battaglia, I need scientific readings."

I gulped and replied in the same neutral tone, satisfied that my voice wasn't shaking like I thought it would, "Yes, sir." I swiveled back to my screen, typing commands as fast as I could to my department several decks below, frowning intensely as I squinted into the monitors as information flooded into my station at breakneck speed. I tried to ignore the eyes of the entire bridge on my back.

"The shuttlecraft explosion slightly decreased the planet killer's output power," I reported, brow furrowing. Spock relayed this information back to Kirk on the _Constellation._

"_Maybe Decker had the right idea but not enough energy to succeed…" _Kirk thoughtfully said, his voice emitting from Uhura's communication speakers. _"Spock, can you determine if the thermonuclear detonation of the Constellation impulse engines inside the doomsday machine would destroy it?"_

Spock's eyes fluttered across the room to meet mine, indicating that he wanted me to calculate with him. He stared straight into space evenly, and I could only fathom what was going on in his mind. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples in small circles, feeling the gritty sweat on my fingertips. My mind whirled impossibly fast as I tried to account for all the unknown variables of the planet killer. After about a minute I started to get an intense headache that I forced aside.

"I'm not sure," I whispered, opening my eyes to find Spock looking at me again as I sat upright again. He nodded, taking me at my word.

"I object to this plan, and certainly to your intention to staying on the _Constellation _to carry it out! I cite Regulations…" Spock frankly told Kirk, and Scotty voiced a similar opinion in the background.

"_Blast regulations! I will note your objections in the Captian's log when I return," _Kirk stubbornly replied. _"Scotty, set a manual 30-second detonation timer. I will start it and beam back to the Enterprise before detonation."_

"_Captain…once the timer begins it cannot be stopped," _Scotty distantly said, sounding shocked at the very suggestion. Kirk disregarded all protests from both of his officers and we beamed Scotty aboard the ship after he initiated the detonation countdown. I stood up and wandered forward to the viewscreen with several other bridge officers to watch the _Constellation _drive on its own kamikaze course straight to the glowing maw of the doomsday machine.

"_Well, beam me up, Scotty," _Kirk happily ordered over the shortwave radio.

"Commander, the transporter room shorted out!" Scotty hollered in his Scottish accent over the intercom in the ship, and all hell broke loose as half of the people on the bridge ran out the door to the transporter room as Scotty rushed to make repairs as the timer ticked toward zero.

"Mr. Scott, try inverse phasing," Spock suggested, and Scotty hollered something incoherent back at him as power was temporarily restored but shorted out again.

I stood helplessly by the viewscreen, and exchanged a wide-eyed panicked look with Chekov, who was standing close behind me. Just as I was about to ask him what we should do, he reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly as we watched the _Constellation _with Kirk stranded aboard grow closer to the machine's glowing maw. Both of our palms were sweating.

"_Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard!" _Kirk requested in his classic understated manner, a note of urgency behind his voice.

"_Bridge, we got him through!" _A flare of cheers erupted on the ship's intercom, and I guessed that Scotty's desperate fix worked and the transporter room had regained power. Kirk was beamed aboard at the last second, and Chekov and I had front row seats as we watched the _Constellation _explode like fireworks after crashing into the doomsday machine. The planet killer went dark, its mechanism destroyed and its indestructible shell was left adrift, dead in space. After a few shocked seconds, I pulled away from Chekov and went back to my station, trying to ignore the look he was giving me, feeling more confused than ever and wishing I had another PADD to take notes in.

"Energy output zero, radiation level normal," I reported to Spock as the doors slithered open and Kirk ran inside, standing dumbfounded as he watched the machine float dead in space. He sighed, and his face relaxed slightly as he realized it was over. Dr. McCoy sprinted in after him, swearing under his breath.

"Captain, random chance seems to have operated in our favor," Spock addressed his Captain. Kirk smiled and walked over, Dr. McCoy running after him, using a tricorder to read his vitals.

"In plain, non-Vulcan English, we've been lucky," McCoy sarcastically said as he quickly examined his friend.

"I believe I said that, Doctor," Spock replied. Kirk chuckled.

"Welcome aboard, Captain," the ship's navigator greeted Kirk as he sat down in the Captain's chair again and grinned at his Vulcan counterpart.

"Thank you, Mr. Sulu. Continue on. Warp five," he ordered in a good-natured tone with a smile that infected everyone on the bridge. I stood up and allowed Spock to take my place without a word, grateful to be heading back to the lower decks where I could collapse in a pile of nerves in peace.

"Aye, Captain!" Sulu enthusiastically replied, and the _Enterprise _zoomed on to another adventure without further ado.


	5. Chapter 5

The Scientist

_Stardate 2821.5_

_En route to Makus Three with a cargo of medical supplies. Our course leads us past Murasaki 312, a quasar-like formation, vague, undefined. A priceless opportunity for scientific investigation (I know I promised I wouldn't write about science, but this is ground breaking, and Spock agrees). On board is Galatic High Commissioner Ferris, overseeing the delivery of the medicines to Makus Three. Hopefully I won't trip in front of him…_

I stopped writing in my PADD and looked up, quickly shutting it and stuffing it in my small tricorder bag, along with my other instruments as Spock strode quickly and gracefully through the plastic strips separating the cargo section of the shuttlecraft from the pilot's seat. I received nothing more than a passing glance, like one might assess a light fixture. I sighed.

The shuttlecraft was constructed similarly to the entire Enterprise: spotlessly clean white surfaces, the annoying seat belts that fasten right across your chest in a rather uncomfortable position, and enough LED light display to make you wonder if it's Christmas. A small electronic sound alerted me and the small scientific party to an incoming communication.

"_Captain to shuttlecraft Galileo. Stand by, Commander Spock."_

"Acknowledged," Spock replied, pushing a button before pulling my tricorder bag out of my hands and inspecting its contents.

"Hey, that's…" I started to protest, but Spock wordlessly handed it back to me.

"I was merely checking that the instruments you have been assigned to carry are undamaged, due to their delicate nature," he informed me tonelessly, and turned to re-enter the pilot's area. A few mean-spirited snickers erupted among my fellows once Spock was behind the clear plastic strips hanging from the shuttle's interior and out of their estimation of earshot. I was used to the general attitude, and saw Spock turn his head slightly back out of the corner of my eye for a few moments, and pause his incessant adjustments, desiring to make the flight perfect. Had I imagined him looking back at me, or was it just the light reflecting off the flexible plastic strips? If only I had been allowed to help pilot instead of Lieutenant Latimer…

Meanwhile, the communication from the bridge had not been shut off, and we could hear clearly what was going on with the Captain, if faintly. I doubt the rest of the landing party heard it; Vulcan hearing is much more finely attuned.

"_I remind you, Captain, I'm entirely opposed to this delay. Your mission is to get those emergency medical supplies to Makus Three in time for their transfer to the New Paris colonies,_" Galatic High Commissioner Ferris said, his voice slightly nasal, as if he had a perpetual cold that caused his voice to be slightly obnoxious.

"_No problem, Commissioner. And may I remind you that I have standing orders to investigate all quasars and quasar-like phenomena wherever they may be encountered. Besides, it's three days to Makus. And the rendezvous doesn't take place for five._" Way to go Captain Kirk. Stick it to Sniffles.

"_I don't like to take chances,_" Ferris continued. Of course you don't. "_The plague is out of control on New Paris. We must get those drugs there on time."_

"_No problem. Captain to Galileo. All systems cleared for take off."_

I rubbed my pointed ears slightly when the end of the conversation came in especially loudly, spoken right into the receiver. I jumped slightly, inciting more giggles from Mears over at his terminal, staying watchful for solar flares. A low growl and glare from Doctor McCoy, who was seated next to me, quickly silenced all conversation and laughter in the small cargo compartment. I turned my face and smiled at him, rewarded by a wink on his usually gruff face. At least he had shaved in anticipation of the Commissioner visiting.

Spock's voice was still audible through the plastic. "Power up. All instruments activated. All readings normal. All go."

"_Launch shuttlecraft."_

The small shuttlecraft hummed to life, and Spock and Latimer piloted it through the hanger bay. The curved doors at the stern of the engineering deck opened, and the little vessel headed out into space. I watched out the tiny porthole behind Mears's head before he moved so I could no longer see it when he moved his head to look down at the readings on the sensors. I fidgeted with the strap on my bag until Dr. McCoy gave me a warning look, and I stuck my hands under my thighs and resigned myself to counting the little blinking lights on all the different panels.

"Readings normal. Acceleration normal. Phase one separation normal," Mears reported to Spock, smoothing his blonde hair back quickly and straightening the sleeves of his uniform in the case that our superior may glance back to look at him. That was Mears. Slightly arrogant, quick to tease, always eager to please.

"Position?" Spock asked.

"Three point seven," Lieutenant Latimer reported from beside him at the navigation terminal. "Sir, one."

"Make up your mind please, Mister Latimer," Spock replied, ever calm and neutral. I imagined Latimer sweating. Take that for cutting in front of me in the replicator line on Wednesday at lunch.

"Sir, this indicator's gone crazy!" Latimer exclaimed.

"That's to be expected, Mister Spock. Quasars are extremely disruptive. Just how much, we don't know," I injected my two-bits into the scientific exchange.

"Considerably, Ensign."

Mears interrupted tersely after a second's pause. "Commander Spock, radiation is increasing."

"Stop forward momentum, Lieutenant Latimer," Spock commanded.

Latimer's tone was distressed when he replied. "I can't, sir! Nothing happens!"

The shuttlecraft shuddered tremendously, and Dr. McCoy started looking a little greenish. I exchanged an incredulous glance with Scotty on the other end of the shuttlecraft, who was sitting rather calmly, literally twiddling his thumbs.

"I may throw up on you," McCoy informed me. I unbuckled myself and hauled my ass over to the communications panel, and started searching for the Enterprise's signal, knowing what command Spock would be giving next, logically. When he turned around to give the order, he didn't even pause in the slightest bit of surprise that I had anticipated him. I opened a channel.

"Galileo to Enterprise. Galileo to Enterprise. Come in, please," I said loudly and clearly, several times, pressing the receiver to my ear. "I can't get a signal, sir. Ionic interference."

"We're being drawn right into it," McCoy said, half-horrified, half-fascinated as he looked out the porthole, still snugly buckled in and holding my instrument bag. The shuttlecraft was shaken again, heavier than the last time. I forced the channel open again, this time getting contact.

"Galileo to Enterprise. Galileo to Enterprise. We are out of control, being pulled directly into the heart of Murasaki three one two. Being hit by violent radiation on outer hull. Course three point two five…"

"Anything at all?" Captain Kirk asked, his posture the same as always: proud, straight-backed, blue eyes dancing with dangerous tenacity, he had the look of one born in the captain's chair. However, the darkness of his tone betrayed his worry for his away team, which contained so many of his best officers and friends.

Lieutenant Uhura uttered a small sigh, turning to face her captain, facial expression bleak and disappointed. "Nothing clear, Captain. Just a few words about being pulled off course."

Kirk shifted in his chair, resting his chin on his palm and crossing his legs at the ankles. "Try and get a fix on the Galileo."

Sulu shook his head and slammed his palms down lightly on his white navigator's panel. He was glad Chekov was off-duty for another hour, or the young Russian would have been having nervous fits for his friend's safety. He himself was worried, having formed a friendship with the young woman himself in the past few months through Chekov, and felt her absence quite profoundly.

"Scanners are blank, Captain," Sulu explained. "We're getting a mass of readings I've never seen. Nothing makes sense."

Kirk got up, crossed the bridge, and flicked on Spock's science computer, cursing himself for letting the two highest ranking science officers and the most competent associates all load on one shuttlecraft and promptly disappear, leaving nothing but quivering Ensigns and that one particularly obnoxious Lieutenant that had been demoted on his first day.

The computer's electronic voice quickly analyzed the sensor readings and relayed the information back to Kirk. "Negative ionic concentration one point six four times ten to the ninth power meters, Radiation wave length three hundred seventy angstroms. Harmonics upward along entire spectrum."

"What is it, Captain?" Ferris asked curiously, hovering around the back near the security panels, having no place on the bridge. "Searching for a needle in a haystack?"

Kirk turned his blue eyes toward him, turning icy and sharp, informing him briskly, "That thing out there has ionized this complete sector. None of our instruments work. At least four complete solar systems in the immediate vicinity. And out there somewhere, a twenty four foot shuttlecraft, off course, out of control. Finding a needle in a haystack would be child's play."

Sulu suppressed a small shudder. It was definitely a good thing Chekov was off-duty.

_Captain's Log, stardate 2821.7. The electromagnetic phenomenon known as Murasaki Three Twelve whirls like some angry blight in space, a depressive reminder that seven shipmates still have not been heard from. Equally bad, the effect has rendered our normal searching systems useless. Without them, we are blind and almost helpless._

A Yeoman was delivering cups of coffee to the officers on the bridge, who were working overtime to locate their lost shuttlecraft. Chekov was now situated beside Sulu at the helm, chugging coffee like it was going out of style, determined to stay on the top of his game to find Carly. And the others, he forced himself to remember, wincing at his lack of concern for them. Well, maybe not Spock.

Chekov decided his lack of moral compass was due to a lack of coffee, and helped himself to some more.

Meanwhile, Ferris was on the pulpit and reprimanding an increasingly pressured and annoyed Kirk. "I was opposed to this from the very beginning. Our flight to Makus Three is of the very highest priority!"

"I'm aware of that, Commissioner. At the same time I have certain scientific duties I must perform, and investigating the Murasaki effect is one," Kirk told the agitated man.

"Yes, but you've lost your crew," Ferris pointed out rather unkindly, and the corner of Kirk's mouth twitched.

"We have two days to find them," Kirk replied icily.

Ferris snorted in disbelief. "Two days? In all that?" He gestured broadly to the viewscreen, which was a mass of clouded color. "Two days?"

Kirk's legendary temper flared slightly, and he whirled around and stalked to face the Commissioner, his nose about an inch from the shorter man's forehead. "What would you have me do, turn around and leave them there?"

Ferris seemed to shrink slightly, but looked evenly up at Kirk, holding his ground. "You shouldn't have sent them out in the first place."

All the muscles in Kirk's jaw tensed, and the tendons in his fist creaked as he clenched his hands. Luckily, Uhura interrupted before tensions could escalate further. "Captain, there's one planet in this solar system capable of sustaining human life. It's type M, oxygen, nitrogen, listed as Taurus Two. It's unexplored. As far as we can determine with our equipment malfunction, it's just about dead-center of the Murasaki effect."

Kirk looked relieved, processing immediately what this meant. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Mister Sulu."

"Yes, sir," Sulu replied steadily.

Kirk paused to glare at the Commissioner. "Set course for Taurus Two."

Sulu turned and began punching buttons and menus on his console. "Aye, aye, sir."

The shuttlecraft landed in one piece, thankfully, due to Spock's quick thinking and the skill of Latimer's crash landing on the rocky landscape of the planet we were forcibly drawn to. The contents of the shuttle had fallen everywhere, and its passengers, especially me, who was not buckled in, were thrown about and battered by everything not strapped down. My head was fuzzy and I grunted, rubbing my eye with my left fist like a child, too uncoordinated to do much else. I shuffled around on the floor, getting my bearings as I kicked aside a bit of rubble with my feet.

"You all right?" McCoy called, and I saw him unbuckling himself and standing up, leaning over another officer who had been badly hit with a sharp instrument.

"Yes," Ensign Gaetano replied, voice a little shaky, holding his wrist.

"Scotty? Mears?" McCoy called, peering around the smoky interior of the cargo bay. My vision started to clear, and my senses returned.

"Now that's what I call a ride!" Scotty joked, drawing weary laughter from Mears, who crawled out from under a console near me.

"Carly?" McCoy asked tentatively, and crouched beside me, searching around for his medical bag. I still felt a bit dizzy.

"Yes." I tilted my head up and down, discovering no nausea. "I just got a little bump on the head."

McCoy stood up, and took hold of me under the armpits, lifting me upwards into my seat. "Upsy-daisy."

"Thank you," I replied, composing myself once again and pressing my hand to the back of my head. I would definitely have a headache tomorrow.

"What happened?" McCoy asked, directing the question to anyone capable of answering. There was a bit of silence, and Mears stepped up to answer.

"I can't be sure, but I'd say that, the magnetic potential of the effect was," he paused, and McCoy gave him a tissue for his nose bleed. "Ah, thank you. Was such that, as we gathered speed, it was multiplied geometrically. And we were simply shot into the center of the effect. Like a projectile."

"I'd say your evaluation is reasonable, Mister Mears," Spock assessed, climbing evenly out of the cockpit, not looking one bit shaken. I don't think I'll ever be able to perfect the Vulcan deep, inner serene calm, and I heard that even Spock slipped up once before I knew him.

"What a mess," Scotty commented, looking around with despair at the ruined shuttlecraft.

"Picturesque descriptions will not mend broken circuits, Mister Scott. I think you'll find your work is cut out for you," Spock coolly replied, and McCoy rolled his eyes once Spock turned his back to bend over the communication console, which was blinking in and out. "Galileo to Enterprise. Galileo to Enterprise. Come in, please."

Scotty wiped his palm on his pans and tried not to glare or snarl at the Vulcan too much. "You don't really expect to get an answer, do you?"

Spock turned around to evenly stare down the increasingly peeved Scotty. The heads of the lower officers, including myself, bobbed back and forth between speakers like we were following a tennis match. "I expect nothing, Mister Scott. It is merely logical to try all the alternatives. Doctor McCoy, a reading on the atmosphere, please."

McCoy turned on his instruments, and replied in his characteristic sarcastic and gruff manner. "Partial pressure of oxygen, seventy millimeters of mercury. Nitrogen one forty. Breathable, if you're not running in competition."

"Just the facts, Doctor," Spock said.

McCoy narrowed his eyes at Spock. The two of them always clashed. "Traces of argon, neon, krypton, all in acceptable quantities. However, I wouldn't recommend this place as a summer resort."

"Thank you for you opinion. It will be duly noted. You're recording this, Ensign?" Spock asked, turning to me. I started, and flinched rather visibly.

"Of course, Commander Spock," I replied in a mumble, digging for my PADD.

"Mister Scott, if you'll make a survey of the damage, please," Spock commanded, clasping his hands behind his back as if surveying a piece of prime real estate, not a ruined shuttlecraft.

"Logical," Scotty sarcastically replied before going about his work, Spock immune as ever to the comments.

"Gentlemen, I think we should move outside, make room for Mister Scott to do his work. Mister Latimer, Mister Gaetano, you'll arm yourselves and scout out the area, keeping in visual contact with the ship."

"Aye, aye, sir," Latimer replied, and the two men went outside, the doors closing behind them.

"What do you think our chances are of contacting the Enterprise?" McCoy asked Spock.

"Under present conditions, extremely poor," Spock replied dryly. My heart sank a bit.

"But they'll be looking for us," I added hopefully.

Spock turned his eyes to me, and I was unable to read much from them like I usually could. Perhaps a bit of pity for me, maybe remorse. "If the ionization effect is as widespread as I believe it is, Ensign, they'll be searching for us without instrumentation, by visual contact only. On those terms, this is a very large planet."

"Then you don't think they'll find us," McCoy observed, raising his eyebrows.

Spock turned and paced away. "Not as long as we're grounded. We may be here for a very long time, Doctor."

Above the sickly green swirled planet, the Enterprise orbited, searching for their lost friends. Commissioner Ferris lounged by the door, watching Uhura working, to the annoyance of Kirk. He wished the man would either help or get out of the way.

"Nothing, Captain," Uhura said, shaking her head sadly, long black ponytail swishing on her back, the Commissioner's eyes following it. Kirk rolled his eyes.

"Ensign Chekov?" Kirk asked.

"Yes, Keptain?" the Ensign replied, his voice well trained to sound calm. Kirk could tell by the tension in the young man's shoulders and the way his hands trembled ever-so-slightly at the conn that he was anxious, and dangerously on edge of slipping.

"Anything on your scanners?" Kirk asked, not allowing himself to become hopeful.

Chekov shook his head. "Totally inoperwative, sir. No readings at all."

"Have you tried tying in to the auxiliary power?"

"Yes, sir. No change," Chekov answered, voice tainted with frustration.

The Captain pressed the conn button on the arm of his chair. "Transport room, this is the captain speaking. Are the transporters beaming up yet?"

"_Not one hundred percent, Captain. We beamed down some inert material, but it came back in a disassociated condition. We wouldn't dare try with people,_" the Chief in the transport room explained, also sounding rather depressed.

"Thank you," Kirk said, letting go of the button and pressing another. "This is the Captain speaking. Flight deck, prepare Columbus for immediate exit, for a search of the planet surface. Correlate coordinates with Mister Sulu. Thank you. Anything, Uhura?"

Uhura shook her head, her beautiful brown eyes downcast. "All wavelengths dominated by ionization effects, sir. Transmission is blocked, reception impossible."

Ferris came out of his lurking position to saunter over to the captain's side. "Well, Captain?"

"We have until 2823.8 to continue the search, Commissioner," Kirk replied tersely.

"You don't really think you'll have any luck, do you?" Ferris asked disdainfully, and everyone else on the bridge took in a sharp breath.

Kirk lowered his voice to a threatening whisper. "Look, these people are my friends and my shipmates. I intend to continue the ship's search for them until the last possible moment."

Ferris stuck his thumbs in his pockets, and huffed. "Very well, Captain, but not one second beyond that moment. Is that clear? If it isn't, I suggest you look at book nineteen, section four thirty three, paragraph twelve."

"I'm familiar with the regulations, Commissioner," Kirk snapped. "I know all about your authority. Launch shuttlecraft Columbus."

Spock and I were scanning one of the shuttlecraft's small nacelles when Doctor McCoy came out to join us.

"Well, I can't say much for the circumstances, but at least it's your big chance," he said conversationally, obviously directing the comment at Spock, not me. I glanced up and continued my work, keeping one ear on their conversation.

"My big chance? For what, Doctor?" Spock curiously asked.

"Command," McCoy stated, waited for a response, and received none, then elaborated. "Oh, I know you, Mister Spock. You've never voiced it, but you've always thought that logic was the best basis on which to build command. Am I right?"

"I am a logical man, Doctor," Spock replied neutrally.

"It'll take more than logic to get us out of this," McCoy commented pessimistically.

"Perhaps, Doctor, but I know of no better way to begin. I realize command does have its fascinations, even under circumstances such as these. But I neither enjoy the idea of command, nor am I frightened of it. It simply exists. And I will do whatever logically needs to be done. Ensign, I believe we are finished here. Excuse me."

I stood up from my crouch by the nacelles, and dutifully followed Spock back inside the shuttlecraft to check on Scotty. I wasn't sure what to make of McCoy's comments, and decided to put them out of my mind for now.

"Very bad, Mister Spock," Scotty loudly called, halfway inside the components of the engine, covered in grime. He crawled out and sat on the floor, looking up at us. I knelt down on one knee to examine the engine curiously myself.

"In what way?" Spock asked.

"Well, we've lost a great deal of fuel. We have no chance at all to reach escape velocity. And if we ever hope to make orbit, we'll have to lighten our load by at least five hundred pounds," Scotty said to Spock as I played with the rotation of a greasy piece of machinery.

"The weight of three grown men," Spock replied. I blinked rapidly and turned around, horrified by what he was suggesting.

"Aye, you could put it that way," Scotty replied, concern lacing his facial expression as he came to the same conclusion I did. McCoy chose that moment to re-enter the conversation, apparently having been lurking in the doorway the entire time.

"Or the equivalent weight in equipment," McCoy suggested.

"Doctor McCoy, with very few exceptions we use virtually every piece of equipment aboard this craft in attaining orbit. There's very little excess weight, except among the passengers," Spock replied, ever cool.

"You mean three of us must stay behind," I announced, voicing all of our concerns.

"Unless the situation changes radically, yes," Spock answered me. I forced my facial expression to remain blank, and not betray the anger I felt toward him now.

"And who's to choose?" I couldn't keep all of the hotness out of my stance, but at least it was not present in my face or my voice.

"As commanding officer, the choice will be mine."

I wanted to smack my hand on my face. "You wouldn't be interested in drawing lots?"

"A very quaint idea, Ensign Battaglia, but I do believe I'm better qualified to make the selection than any random drawing of lots," Spock answered.

"All right, Mister Spock. Who?" I flung the question at him, hanging in the air for less than a second before Spock answered, his voice slightly louder.

"My choice will be a logical one, arrived at through logical means," Spock coldly said. McCoy leapt to my defense.

"Mister Spock, life and death are seldom logical," the doctor commented.

"But attaining a desired goal always is, Doctor." Spock began to walk toward the door. "Now gentlemen, and ladies, I suggest we move outside to make a further examination of the hull in the event we've overlooked any minor damage." Spock left, Scotty immersing himself in the engine again, grumbling.

"If any minor damage was overlooked, it was when they put his head together," I darkly muttered to McCoy as I dawdled on my way out of the shuttlecraft, not exactly looking forward to more quality time with everyone's favorite Vulcan first officer.

"Not his head, Carly, his heart. His heart," McCoy replied, shaking his own head sadly, patting me on the shoulder before I exited the company of the doctor and the engineer.

Outside, Spock and Mears were working on the hull of the shuttlecraft. I did my best to help, but engineering was not exactly one of my strong points, although I did know the theory of it. However, I quickly discovered Starfleet Academy theory and the real thing were very different when we heart a scream, coming from a distance away.

Spock, Mears, and I all leapt to our feet. Both of the men drew their phasers on reflex, and I was left trying to yank mine out of my belt as both of them charged off. "Hey, wait up!" I started to run after them, but apparently we had missed most of the action. Gaetano was firing his phaser over a bluff, where several huge humanoid things were running away. There was a spear in Latimer's back taller than a man. I gulped, and hung back behind Spock and Mears, allowing them to be a barrier between myself and the gruesome sight. To think I had been jealous that he was navigator instead of me less than two hours ago.

"What was it?" Spock asked.

"I-it was something huge, terrible. Up there. I think I hit it," Gaetano said shakily, wiping sweat off his face.

"Did you see what it was?" Mears demanded, shaking the other man's shoulder to tear his sight away from his dead comrade.

Gaetano seemed to get a grip, and nodded firmly. "Vaguely. It was like a giant ape."

Meanwhile, Spock left to investigate. "Poor Latimer," I murmured.

"At least it was quick for him," Gaetano commented sadly.

"We'll get off all right," Mears reassured both of us, giving Gaetano a friendly slap on the shoulder, and shooting me a firm, toothless smile. I shakily smiled back, small and timid. Maybe Mears wasn't so bad, afterall, even if he did cut in front of me at the replicator lines all the time.

Spock returned, pocketing his phaser. "Nothing there."

"I tell you there was!" Gaetano exclaimed, gesturing angrily at the bluff.

"I don't doubt your word," Spock replied, crouching down next to Latimer's body.

"But there must be something. I swear I hit it," Gaetano said in disbelief. Spock pulled the bloody spear from Latimer's body and examined it.

"Folsom Point," he commented.

"Sir?" Mears asked in confusion.

"There's a remarkable resemblance to the Folsom Point discovered in 1925, old world calendar, New Mexico, North America. A bit more crude about the shaft, I believe. Not very efficient," Spock said calmly, rotating the weapon in his hands carefully.

"Not very efficient? Is that all you have to say?" Mears said incredulously. I sighed, and exchanged a glance with Gaetano.

"Am I in error, Mister Mears?"

"You? Error? Impossible," Mears said bitterly.

"Then what, Mister Mears?" Spock asked.

"There's a man lying there dead, and you talk about stone spears. What about Latimer?" Mears demanded to know.

"My concern for the dead will not bring him back to life, Mister Mears," Spock reprimanded the lesser officer calmly.

"Mister Spock," Gaetano spoke up. "In the interest of efficiency, I don't think we should leave his body here."

"Bringing him back to the ship should not interfere with our repair efforts. If you need assistance, I-"

"We'll do it," Gaetano said warily, avoiding Spock's eyes. "Give me a hand with him, will you?"

_Captain's Log, stardate 2822.3. We continue to search, but I find it more difficult each moment to ward off a sense of utter futility and great loss._

Lieutenant Uhura turned around from her communications screen. "Captain, the Columbus has returned from searching quadrant seven seven nine X by five three four M. Results negative," she said.

"Have them proceed to the next quadrant. Any word from engineering on our sensors?" Kirk asked.

"They're working on them, sir. Still inoperable," Uhura replied.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Kirk said, his voice low.

"Captain," Ferris said, coming out from his lounging position in the vacated science console. Ensign West, or whoever he was, had had a nervous breakdown after thirty minutes on the bridge, and it looked like anyone could be next.

"Yes, Commissioner?" Kirk replied automatically.

"I don't relish the thought of abandoning your crewmen out there, however I must remind you-"

"I haven't forgotten, Commissioner," Kirk interrupted.

"You're running out of time," Ferris pointed out.

"I haven't forgotten that either, Commissioner." Kirk sat down in his chair and pressed the conn button. "This is the captain. Try using overload power on the transporters. We've got to get them working."

"_Aye, aye, Captain_," said the Chief from the transporter room.

"Uhura, order the Columbus to open its course two degrees on every lap from now on," Kirk ordered, his commands quickly obeyed by his communications officer.

"But Captain, two degrees means they'll be overlooking more than a dozen terrestrial miles on each search loop," Sulu pointed out anxiously, turning around from his helm to look nervously at his captain, afraid he had overstepped a boundary by speaking out of turn.

"It also means we have a fighting chance to cover the majority of the planet's surface. Mind your helm, Lieutenant Sulu," Kirk said coolly.

"Yes, sir," Sulu said, turning away and returning to his work after exchanging a wordless glance with Chekov over the conn.

Ferris stepped back into the turbolift, the doors opening and closing around him. "Twenty four more hours, Captain."

_To Be Continued!_


	6. Chapter 6

The Scientist

"Perhaps if you were to channel the second auxiliary tank through the primary intake valve," Spock suggested, leaning over Scotty as he lay on his back, part under one of the control panels.

"It's too delicate. It may not be able to take the pressure as it is," Scotty replied, his voice slightly muffled as I followed Dr. McCoy into the main part of the shuttle from the rear compartment, hauling the end of a large rectangular metal box of instruments.

"This should save us at least fifty pounds, Mister Spock," McCoy grunted as we heaved the metal container out of the shuttle.

"Excellent, Doctor," Spock answered, standing up straight and coming around to face us.

"We should be able to scrape up another hundred pounds," I informed Spock while wiping my dusty and greasy hands on my skirt. He inclined his head to me, and looked thoughtful and logical.

"Which would still leave us at least one hundred and fifty pounds overweight," Spock replied coolly, turning to pace a few steps away.

McCoy's temper flared up immediately. "I can't believe you're serious about leaving someone behind! Now whatever it is that's out there…"

"It is more rational to sacrifice one life than six, Doctor," Spock coolly replied.

"I'm not talking about rationality." The Doctor's voice was tight with anger.

"You might be wise to start," Spock said, his voice filled with ice.

Mears stepped inside the shuttlecraft from outside, ducking his head in from the low clearance. "Mister Spock. We're ready," he said somberly.

"For what?" Spock inquired.

"The services for Latimer," Mears tightly answered. His lips were tightly compressed. I knew that Latimer and Mears had been friends, and I understood Mears wanting to give Latimer a proper burial. But at the same time, it just didn't seem appropriate considering our situation.

"Mister Mears, we're working against time," Spock quickly answered, his flat tone telling everyone that he disapproved of this activity.

Mears made a furious sound in the back of his throat. "The man's dead. He deserves a decent burial. You're the captain. A few words."

Spock hesitated. "Doctor, perhaps you know the correct words for such an occasion," he finally said.

"Mister Spock, that's your place," McCoy shot back gently.

"My place is here. If you please, Doctor."

"Now look," McCoy began. "We may all die here. At least let us die like men, not machines."

"By dealing with first things first, I hope to increase our chances of staying alive," Spock said, finalizing the matter, then crouching back down next to the rapidly repairing Scotty. "Well, Mister Scott."

"If you'll give me a hand with this conduit…" Scotty muttered, scooting over so Spock could aid him.

Mears slammed the door shut, leaving Scotty and Spock to it. McCoy and I exchanged a dark look, then went about trying to find more ways to lighten the shuttle, stripping the shuttlecraft down to its bare bones and essentials, working without rest.

"Pressure's dropping. We're losing everything," Scotty said, breaking the heavy silence that hung in the shuttle, that was broken only occasionally when McCoy and I would whisper to one another.

The machines began to belch smoke, and Scotty pushed himself out from under the panel, coughing and flapping his hands around to clear the air.

"What happened?" Spock asked.

"One of the lines gave. The strain of coming through the atmosphere and the added load when we tried to bypass." Scotty clambered to his feet, frantically twirling the controls and checking gauges, then heavily sighing. "Yes, that's done it. We have no fuel."

Spock's eyebrows contracted slightly. "That would seem to solve the problem of who to leave behind. Consider the alternatives, Mister Scott."

Scotty was enraged, and flailed with his arms in a panic. "We have no fuel! What alternatives?"

"Mister Scott, there are always alternatives," Spock said, ever calm and pristine.

Dr. McCoy leapt to his feet near the shuttle door. "Mister Spock! Something's happening outside."

Everyone but Scotty leapt to their feet and ran outside across the harsh landscape. I would have kept running toward the little burial except for Dr. McCoy grabbing my wrist and pulling me down a rock. I could hear a strange scraping sound from up ahead.

"What do those supersensitive ears make of that, Mister Spock?" McCoy growled across me to Spock, who was standing.

"Wood rubbing on some kind of leather," Spock replied, tilting his head to the side. Gaetano and Mears came up around us from the right, panting like they had been running hard.

"They're getting ready. They'll attack," Gaetano urgently said.

"Not necessarily," I stated quietly. "It could be a simple tribal rite, assuming a tribal culture."

"Not a tribal culture," Spock said, his expression pensive. "Their artifacts are too primitive. More likely a loose association of some sort."

"If we knew more about them," Mears muttered under his breath.

I sighed, and rolled my eyes. "We know enough. If they're tribal, they'll have a sense of unity. We can use that."

"How so, Ensign?" Spock replied.

"By hitting them hard. Give them a bloody nose. Make them think twice about attacking us."

"Yes, I agree," said Gaetano. "If we stand by and do nothing, we're just giving them an invitation to come down and slaughter us.

"I'm frequently appalled by the low regard you Earthmen have for life," Spock frankly remarked.

"Well, we're practical about it," Gaetano snapped. "I say we hit them before they hit us."

"Ensign Battaglia?"

I was surprised Spock had asked my opinion first. "Absolutely."

"Doctor McCoy?"

McCoy shrugged. "Seems logical to me."

"It does, indeed. It seems logical to me, also. But to take life indiscriminately…"

"The majority…" Gaetano began to say, only Spock cut him off.

"I am not interested in the opinion of the majority, Mister Gaetano. Components must be weighed. Our danger to ourselves as well as our duties to other life forms, friendly or not. There's a third course."

"That could get us killed," Mears commented.

"I think not," Spock said. "Doctor McCoy."

"Yes," McCoy answered.

"You and Ensign Battaglia return to the ship. Assist Mister Scott in any way possible. We'll be back shortly," Spock ordered. I angrily opened my mouth to protest and being left behind when my Vulcan traits could be an asset, but McCoy hissed at me.

"Right." McCoy grabbed my elbow and steered me away from the three men as Spock began to direct his orders.

"It's not fair! I could be useful-" I started to protest once we had walked out of earshot.

"Shush. You're more useful back at the shuttle, helping Scotty, and Spock knows it. He's being logical, so don't get your panties in a bunch over being left out of the action," McCoy grumbled to me, and I resigned myself to stomping along behind him, then sullenly aiding Scotty in patching up the interface of the navigation.

A short while later, the attack group returned.

"Did you find them?" I asked immediately, jerking to my feet.

"Yes, we found them. They won't bother us again," Spock answered, meeting my eyes. I felt comforted when his gaze lingered on mine, the equivalent of if Spock had smiled at me.

"I hope not. Scotty has an idea," McCoy interrupted.

"It's dangerous, but it might work," Scotty warned the others.

"Go, Mister Scott," Spock directly said, his demeanor changing seamlessly.

"I can adjust the main reactor to function with a substitute fuel supply," Scotty said.

Spock frowned. "That's all very well, but we don't have a substitute supply."

"Aye, we do," Scotty said, sighing. "Our phasers. I can adapt them and use their energy. It'll take time, but it's possible."

"Trouble is, they happen to be our only defense," McCoy added.

"They would also seem to be our only hope," Spock observed.

"Aye," Scotty agreed. All eyes now were on Spock.

"Ensign, your phaser," Spock said, holding out his hand in front of me. I internally groaned, why me? _Because he trusts you. He knows you'll follow his orders,_ a little voice inside me said.

"But what if the creatures attack again?" I asked, trying to keep the anxiety from my voice.

"They won't attack for at least several hours. By then, with luck, we'll be gone," Spock reassured me, twitching his fingers. I hesitated for a moment before pulling my silver phaser from my belt and handing it to him. Spock passed it off to Scotty immediately, who began dismantling it.

"If I can get a full load, we should be able to achieve orbit with all hands. Not that we can maintain it long," Scotty said through a mouth that was holding a tool between his teeth.

"We don't have to maintain it very long, Mister Scott. In less than twenty four hours, the Enterprise will be forced to abandon its search in order to make a rendezvous. If we can't maintain orbit after that time, it won't make any difference. If we burn up in a decaying orbit or die here on the planet's surface, we shall surely die. Doctor, your phaser. Go to work Mister Scott."

"Aye, aye, sir."

In the transporter room of the U.S.S. _Enterprise_, a bunch of boxes were beamed aboard with the Captain and Lieutenant Chief, the transporter technician, looking on.

"They came back all right, sir," Chief said. "In my opinion, the transporters are now safe for human transport."

"Good," Kirk said, then punched the comm. button. "This is the captain. Landing parties one, two, and three, report to transporter room for immediate beaming down to the surface of the planet. Ordinance condition One A.

Chief turned to Kirk and spoke to him in an undertone as security details began filing in the room. "Captain, it's a big planet. It'll be sheer luck if our landing parties find anything," he whispered.

"I'm depending on luck, Lieutenant. It's almost the only tool we have that'll work," Kirk replied, patting his officer on the shoulder.

When Lt. Gaetano didn't come back from his shift on watch outside the shuttle, Spock, McCoy, and I went to look for him. We followed his pacing tracks to an area out of eyesight of the shuttle, and saw signs of a struggle in the sandy ground. McCoy and I bent down to examine the marks in the ground while Spock picked up the dropped phaser.

"Take this back to Mister Scott for conversion, please Doctor."

"Nobody knows what's happened to Gaetano, and you hand over his phaser like nothing's happened at all," Dr. McCoy angrily growled.

Spock then handed the Doctor his own phaser. "And give this to Mister Scott in the even I don't return."

"Just where are you going?" I called after Spock as he hiked away, moving at an effortless pace faster than a normal man could walk.

"I have a certain scientific curiosity about what's become of Mister Gaetano. Return to the ship, please," he ordered me as he left.

"I don't think I'll ever understand him," I commented to Dr. McCoy grumpily.

The Doctor sighed. "I don't know. He'll risk his neck locating Gaetano, and if he finds him, he's just as liable to order him to stay behind. You tell me."

"Do you really think the ship will ever leave?" I asked.

McCoy shrugged. "Well, it won't unless we get these phasers back."

We hiked back to the shuttle to find Scotty still lying in the middle of the floor, working. I laid down beside him on my stomach and helped reconfigure a phaser, attaching the power core to the ship. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard spears colliding on the side of the ship, and my jaw dropped when McCoy and Mears helped Spock get inside.

"Well, Mister Spock, they didn't stay frightened very long, did they?" McCoy commented.

Spock seemed baffled. "Most illogical reaction," he mused. "We demonstrated our superior weapons. They should have fled."

"You mean they should have respected us?" McCoy questioned.

"Of course."

"Mister Spock, respect is a rational process. Did it ever occur to you they might react emotionally, with anger?" McCoy asked.

"Doctor, I am not responsible for their unpredictability," Spock shot back.

McCoy continued. "They were perfectly predictable to anyone with feeling. You might as well admit it, Mister Spock, your precious logic brought them down on us."

"Why haven't they done anything?" Mears anxiously asked, his hand wandering around his hip where his phaser used to be.

"They're studying us, for the moment," Spock provided.

"Another prediction, Mister Spock?" I commented wryly.

"My opinion, Ensign," Spock replied easily.

Then the shuttlecraft shook tremendously as one of the locals started battering it with a rock.

"Seal the windows!" Spock ordered.

"Studying us, Mister Spock? They seem to learn rather quickly!" McCoy hollered over the racket caused by the rocks being hurled at the shuttlecraft.

"All right, Spock, you have all the answers. What now?" Mears shouted, physically holding a window shut as a hostile local banged on it.

"Mister Mears, your tone is increasingly hostile," Spock icily commented.

"My tone isn't the only thing that's hostile, Mister Spock!" Mears yelled back.

Spock stood in the middle of the chaos, contemplating. "Curious. Most illogical."

"I'm sick and tired of your logic!" Mears shouted over his shoulder, eyes popping in fury a bit.

"We could use a little inspiration," I called, passing Scotty the tools he needed with only a word.

"Strange," Spock mused. "Step by step, I have made the correct and logical decisions. And yet two men have died."

"And you've brought our furry friends down on us," McCoy added sarcastically.

"I do seem to have miscalculated regarding them, and the inculcated resentment on your parts. The sum of the parts cannot be greater than the whole," Spock finished.

"A little less analysis and more action. That's what we need, Spock," McCoy told him.

"How much longer, Mister Scott?"

"Another hour, maybe two," Scotty said, buried in wires spilling from open panels under the consoles for the engine.

"That won't be long enough," Dr. McCoy growled.

"Doctor, a phaser can only drain so fast," Scotty snapped, uncharacteristically irritated.

"How long do you think those plates will hold out under this? We've got to do something!" Mears shouted, now putting all his strength into supporting the middle of the ceiling of the shuttle as a local pounded on it with a rock, shrieking.

"You've got your hands full," Scotty commented, motioning for me to give him another instrument.

_Captain's Log, stardate 2823.1. Our landing parties are on the surface of Taurus Two. We continue to hope. Instruments are slowly returning to an operable condition as the ion storm slowly disperses. On the ship, we can only wait helplessly._

Captain Kirk finished recording his daily captain's log in an undertone, then got up from his chair and crossed the bridge to Uhura. "What was word from the sensor section?"

Uhura glanced up at her captain. Her eyes were anxious and tired, and Kirk felt a pang of irritation that she had not been relieved. He would have to speak to the quartermaster. "At last report they were getting some readings," she began, only to be cut off by Kirk as his emotions flared.

"I'm not interested in the last report. I want to know now."

"Yes, sir," Uhura quickly answered, and radioed down to the sensor section immediately.

Ferris sidled up next to Kirk, sniffling. Kirk took a deep breath, praying that his threadbare patience would last through another conversation with the insufferable Commissioner. "You have two hours and forty three minutes, Captain," said the Commissioner.

"I'm perfectly aware of how much time I have left," Kirk said through gritted teeth. He knew his crew was working at a near frantic pace to locate nearly all their senior officers, but he would have to order them to push even harder.

"I'm delighted. However I shall continue to remind you," the Commissioner said pleasantly.

"You do that."

"Sir! Sensor section reporting," Uhura interrupted. "Static interference still creating false images. Estimates eighty percent undependable."

"What about radio communication?" Kirk asked rapidly, his usually A.D.D. mind twirling like clockwork.

Uhura checked. "Clearing slowly. Still incapable of transmission or reception."

"What do you intend to do?" Ferris asked again, from beside the conn, where Chekov was giving his back death glares.

"Do?" Kirk asked, running a hand through his hair, which was already standing up in lopsided places. "I intend to continue the search. Foot by foot, inch by inch, by candlelight if necessary, until the last possible moment. And if you'd keep your nose off my bridge, I'd be thankful."

Ferris scoffed. "I'm sure the authorities will be pleased by your diligence, Captain. I'm not sure they'll appreciate the way you address a High Commissioner."

"I'm in command here, Mister Ferris," Kirk all but growled at the man.

Ferris smiled sardonically as he backed away into the background of the working chaos. "You are, Captain," he said softly. "For another two hours and forty two minutes."

"Mister Scott, how much power do we have left in the ship's batteries?" Spock asked his engineer calmly.

Scotty clambered out from underneath the dismantled panel to the engine we were working on, leaving me to continue taping the wires back together.

"They're in good shape, but they won't lift us off, if that's what you're getting at," Scotty answered, and Mears and Dr. McCoy uttered a shared groan.

"Will they electrify the exterior of this ship?" Spock asked slowly, and a smile split across Scotty's laughter-creased face.

"That they will, Mister Spock!" he cheerfully replied. He dashed to the rear compartment and put on big rubber gloves, and flapped me away from the engine with his hands.

"Get to the center of the ship. Don't touch the plates," Spock instructed us, and we all huddled in a small crowd in the middle of the ship. "Be sure you're insulated. Stand by. Are you ready, Scott?"

"Ready, Mister Spock," Scotty replied.

"All right. Go." Scotty used a spanner to short out the battery connections, and I heard the snap of a huge electrical charge roar through the metal plates of the ship, and primitive shouts from outside. "Again! Again!"

Eventually, it went quiet and still outside. The silence was a relief after the past couple hours of constant hammering on the shuttle.

"I daren't use any more. Not and be sure of ignition," Scotty informed us, pulling off his gloves and stepping away from the battery.

"I believe we've used enough. Mister Scott, I suggest you continue draining the phasers," answered Spock.

"Aye," Scotty said, and returned to his work.

"It must've worked," McCoy said, obviously relieved.

"For the moment," I warily replied, looking up at the dented ceiling.

"For the moment?" Mears said, sounding horrified.

Spock cut in. "The moment they discover they're not seriously hurt, they'll be back. Meanwhile, please check the aft compartment. See if there's anything you can unload to lighten the ship."

"Mister Gaetano's body's back there," Mears said sullenly.

Spock nodded, the seemingly human gesture looking strange on him. "It will of course have to be left behind," he instructed.

"Not without a burial," Mears argued.

"It would expose members of this crew to unnecessary peril," Spock immediately replied. Mears had a rebuttal ready this time, and the pace of Spock's debate this time did not deter him.

"I'll take that chance. You see, Mister Spock, I would insist upon a decent burial even if your body was back there."

"Mister Mears," McCoy cut in, with a warning tone.

Mears whirled around, anger and hurt in his expression. "I'm sick and tired of this machine!"

"That's enough!" Scotty shouted over the enraged Mears, and an uncomfortable silence fell. I found myself wishing that I was very, very far away. It hadn't really hit me very hard before that it was likely that we would die on the surface, or even if we obtained orbit, we might get there to find the _Enterprise_ gone. Emotions swelled up not at the thought of dying, but at the thought of never seeing Pavel again. I concentrated very hard on the texture of the tiles beneath my shoes, forcing those thoughts back down, like I had been trained so hard to do at the Academy in San Francisco.

"Gentlemen. All right, Mister Mears, you'll have your burial, provided the creatures will permit it," Spock finally decided. When I glanced up, his eyes were on me. It was possible that he mistook my momentary lapse in control over my emotions as sorrow for the death of Lt. Gaetano. I wiped my expression coldly blank to match his and left to check the aft compartment, as ordered.

"Captain Kirk," Uhura urgently began, swiveling around in her chair, listening piece pressed to her ear. "Landing party number two has been beamed back aboard ship. They have casualties. One dead, two injured."

Kirk crossed the bridge to Spock's unmanned station, wondering why Carly hadn't filled his absence yet, before exposing himself to the glaring fact that she was on the surface too. "Put Lieutenant Kelowitz on visual," he ordered. While waiting for a moment, he let his gaze rest on his young tactical officer's curly head. _No wonder he looks like he's about to jump out of his skin_, Kirk thought.

"_Kelowitz, Captain."_ Kelowitz's broad face appeared on the monitor, his voice sounding tired. His uniform was dirty.

"Report."

"_We were attacked, Captain. Huge, furry creatures. I checked with astral anthropology, and they're order 480G, anthropoid. Similar to life forms discovered on Hansen's Planet, but much larger. Ten, twelve feet in height._"

"There are casualties?" Kirk asked.

Kelowitz nodded grimly on the monitor. "_Ensign O'Neal got a spear through the body before we even knew they were around. Lieutenant Immamura has a dislocated shoulder and severe lacerations, but he'll make it all right. Captain, the creatures are all over the place. If the Galileo is down on that planet, I…"_

Kirk cut him off instantly, keenly aware of the bridge crew listening in. "Thank you, Lieutenant. You'd better report to Sickbay yourself," he said, preparing to end the communication.

"_Aye, aye, Captain_," Kelowitz finished with great relief, and the monitor went black the moment Commissioner Ferris entered from the turbolift.

"Captain Kirk," he greeted, almost reverently. Kirk stood up from the abandoned Science station, and seated himself firmly in the captain's chair. He almost wanted to tell Sulu to stop cracking his knuckles and glaring at the Commissioner. "Check your chronometer. You'll see that it is 2823.8. Your time is up."

"But they're still out there."

"So are the plague victims on New Paris," Ferris said, compressing his lips into a tight line. "I'm sorry, Captain. I now assume authority granted to me under Title fifteen, Galactic Emergency Procedures, and I order you to abandon search!"

"The Columbus hasn't returned yet. I still have two search parties out," Kirk fired back, stalling, trying to buy time.

Ferris snorted, seeing right through the show. "You're procrastinating, Captain. You have your orders. Recall your search parties and proceed to Makus Three immediately."

Kirk crossed the bridge and leaned on the back of Uhura's chair with one hand. "Lieutenant."

"Yes, sir."

Kirk sighed heavily. "Order the transporter room to immediately beam up the two search parties from the surface. Attempt to contact the Columbus."

"I'm in partial contact with them now, sir," Uhura reported, pressing buttons.

"Then have them return immediately," Kirk said, turning around slowly to face the viewscreen. "Mister Sulu, prepare to abandon search. Set course for Makus Three."

_Captain's log, supplement. The search parties have returned to the ship, and the Columbus is on its way back. I have been compelled to abandon the search._

"Captain, the sensor section says the beams are working again," Uhura interrupted the Captain, and Kirk glanced up from his little recorder.

"What about the other systems?" he asked urgently.

"No, sir. Too much interference," Uhura regretfully reported.

"Captain, course set for Makus Three," Sulu said. The tone of his voice was agonizing, and the look on his fellow's face at the conn made Uhura wonder if Chekov wasn't about to launch himself from his seat and disrupt the course setting.

"Stand ready, Mister Sulu. How long before the Columbus comes on board?" Kirk asked.

"Twenty three minutes, sir," Chekov reported, glancing down at his monitor again after reporting.

"Twenty three minutes, then," Kirk muttered, rubbing his chin.

"Enterprise, this is Galileo. Come in, please. Enterprise." I sighed and set down the headpiece. "Nothing, sir. Just ionic interference."

"That's it," Scotty put in, standing up from his final phaser/power cell.

"How about weight?"

"If we shed every ounce, we might be able to achieve orbit," Scotty replied, looking doubtful.

"How long can we hold it?"

"A few hours, no longer. But if we time it right, we can cut out of orbit and save enough fuel for a controlled re-entry," Scotty announced, clearly planning that the _Enterprise _would not be waiting.

"To land here again? Not a very attractive possibility," Spock remarked.

Scotty's tone was disheartened. "We have very few alternatives, Mister Spock."

"Doctor McCoy, Mister Mears," Spock called up into the aft compartment. "When can we lift off, Scott?"

"Maybe eight minutes if the weight's right," Scotty replied, checking his instruments. Meanwhile, McCoy appeared from the aft compartment, followed closely by Mears.

"Gentlemen, the ship will lift off in exactly ten minutes. You have that long to bury Mister Gaetano. Now, it appears to be clear outside, at least for the moment. I'll assist you. Hurry," Spock instructed, and the three of them filed outside. I went back to trying to contact the _Enterprise._

Uhura turned back around in her chair, looking beautiful despite the look of sadness on her face at the abandonment of Spock and her fellow crewmen. "The Columbus is aboard, sir. The flight hatch is closed. Transporter room reports last of the landing parties have been beamed safely up," she reported.

Kirk turned to Chekov at the conn expectantly. "All systems report secured for varp factors," he regretfully said.

"Mister Sulu, proceed on course for Makus Three, at space normal speed," Kirk ordered. Sulu raised his eyebrows before starting.

"Space normal, sir?" Sulu questioned, and turned around to stare at the captain. Space normal was roughly the speed of a crawling worm.

"Those are my orders," Kirk firmly said. "Lieutenant Uhura, order all sensor sections to direct beams aft. Full function, continuous operation until further orders."

"Yes, sir," Uhura replied. Kirk leaned back in his chair, hoping his last ditch efforts would work.

My eyes darted up anxiously at the familiar sounds of chaos and battle from outside. I exchanged glance with Scotty, who hauled himself up off the floor and we started for the door, arming ourselves with engineering tools just as Spock, Mears, and McCoy charged inside, spears colliding with the ship after them.

"Go, Scott!" Spock ordered in a military shout.

"Aye, sir!" Scotty replied, slamming the ship into gear.

Spock turned to round on the doctor. "I told you to lift off!" he exclaimed, looking furious.

McCoy looked amused. "Don't be a fool, Mister Spock. We couldn't leave you out there," Dr. McCoy informed him. Spock turned away, rather than say thank you. McCoy winked at me, and I snickered.

"Get us off, Scott!" Spock ordered, sounding a bit less calm.

"We should be moving, but we're not," Scotty explained.

Spock paced around the ship, glancing at the remaining instruments. "Quite right, Mister Scott. There's something holding us down. All systems are go, but we're not moving." Then he threw some switches on the pilot's panel, and the ship began to shudder.

"What are you doing?" Scotty incredulously shouted over the din.

"Our boosters."

Scotty gaped at him in disbelief. "We'll never be able to hold orbit!"

"Would you rather stay here?" Spock shot back, staring the engineer down with piercing eyes.

"No, Mister Spock," Scotty conceded, then they swapped seats.

I felt the ship began to lift under my feet. "We're moving!" I exclaimed, and Mears gave a whoop of joy.

"We got off!" Dr. McCoy said, equally joyful.

"May I remind you we have yet to achieve orbit, nor can we maintain it long. An hour from now we may be right back from where we started from," Spock interrupted our cheers, but all I could do was smile as I watched the Galileo leave the sickly yellow and green atmosphere of the planet out one of the porthole windows.

"Gentlemen, by coming after me, you may well have destroyed what slim chance you had for survival," Spock began, talking to break the silence. Mears had told me that after they finished burying Gaetano, the local creatures had returned, with friends, and Spock wouldn't have made it back without rescuing. "The logical thing for you to have done was to have left me behind."

"Mister Spock, remind me to tell you that I'm sick and tired of your logic," Dr. McCoy bitterly remarked from beside me, watching the sky outside the window with me.

"That is a most illogical attitude." Spock turned his attention back to his work. "Orbit in one minute, Mister Scott. Fuel status?"

"Fifteen pounds psi," Scotty reported. Approximately enough for one orbit.

"After that?" McCoy asked.

"Tapping our boosters ended our last chance for a soft landing," Scotty informed us sourly.

"You mean a burn-up?" Mears asked.

"It is the usual end of a decaying orbit," Spock replied.

Mears groaned. "I don't want to die up here."

"Infinitely preferable to the kind of death we'd be granted on the planet's surface, I should think," Spock remarked thoughtfully.

Mears rolled his eyes to the doctor and I. "I admire your ability to make so measured a choice," he sarcastically said.

"Mister Spock," Scotty interrupted the impending argument. "You said a while ago that there were always alternatives."

"Did I?" Spock wondered. "I may have been mistaken."

McCoy started laughing. "Well, at least I lived long enough to hear that. Is there anything else we can do?"

Spock shook his head. "The _Enterprise _is surely on course for Makus Three by now. I for one do not believe in angels."

"Well, Mister Spock, so ends your first command," Dr. McCoy said in a sarcastically congratulatory voice.

"Yes. My first command," Spock softly finished.

"Orbit altitude, Mister Spock," Scotty cut in. "With our present fuel, that gives us about forty five minutes."

Spock took over my station. "Galileo to Enterprise. Galileo to Enterprise, come in, please. Galileo to Enterprise. Come in, please." He seemed to ponder for a moment, then flicked the Fuel Jettison button.

"Mister Spock!" Scotty yelled, and there was a jolt as two long plumes of flame streaked out from the nacelles outside the little window.

"What happened?" Mears asked, still feeling for where his phaser should be, on reflex.

"He jettisoned the fuel and ignited it," Scotty angrily said, glaring at Spock.

I finally gave in and rounded on Spock. "We needed that fuel to maintain orbit! Are you out of your mind?" I shrieked, not believing what just happened.

"Perhaps, Ensign."

"How long have we got now, Scotty?" Dr. McCoy grimly asked.

Scotty huffed and slammed his palms down on the navigation panel. "The orbit'll start decaying as soon as the fuel's exhausted. Say six minutes."

The air was full of pointless status reports over the comm. as Chekov grew closer and closer to ripping his hair out. Or ripping Commissioner Ferris's out. Either would work, currently. He didn't even want to think about how he felt, with Carly left on the surface of that horrible planet, scared, abandoned, hurt, or maybe…

_No,_ he forced those thoughts out of his head, and tried not to look at the empty Science station. _Can't think about that. Not now._

"Captain, there's something on the screen, at Taurus Two," Sulu suddenly said, and Chekov jumped in his seat a little.

"Sensors, a meteorite?" Kirk asked urgently.

"No. It's holding a lateral line." Sulu traced the path of his readings on his monitor. "There it is again! Holding steady, Captain."

"A hundred and eighty degrees about, Mister Sulu. Lieutenant Uhura, contact the transporter room. All beams ready. Full normal speed," Kirk ordered quickly, and the bridge swayed as Sulu brought the ship around.

Back on the shuttlecraft, we were arguing. Again. What else would we be doing?

"A distress signal?" Scotty scoffed. "It's like sending up a flare. Mister Spock, that was a good gamble. Perhaps it was worth it."

"No one out there to see it," Mears grumbled. Outside, the plume of flame faded out, and the ship began to sink.

"Orbit decaying, Mister Spock. Ten seconds to atmosphere," Scotty tensely reported, and I clenched my fists to keep my hands from shaking.

Dr. McCoy clapped his hands together nervously. "It may be the last action you'll ever take, Mister Spock, but it was all human," McCoy said, raising his voice as the noise of the ship's hull starting to crack increased.

"Totally illogical," Spock said quietly. "There was no chance."

"That's exactly what I mean," McCoy replied.

The front of the craft started to glow red, and the instrumentation began to smoke and crackle. Mears and I backed away as far as we could, and the temperature began to increase, as well as the whining sound of the metal compressing and snapping. Sweat trickled down my face and neck, and I gasped for air, feeling lightheaded. I put out a hand to the mini-conn to steady myself. Beside me, Mears sagged sideways into the wall, and Dr. McCoy began gasping for air, clumsily wiping sweat from his forehead with his already wet sleeve.

"It's getting hot," I panted, gripping the corner of the monitor, trying to keep from passing out. I believed that a person could not get any hotter without exploding, but I was wrong, because it kept happening. Eventually, I slid down to the floor beside Dr. McCoy, and my eyelids felt like there were lead weights attached to them. I raised my hand to try and force myself to keep them opening, knowing that once I closed them, it would be the end. I accidentally smacked myself in the forehead instead, and as I blearily looked up I wondered distantly why yellow beams of light were swirling around my hand before I lost consciousness…

"Welcome back aboard, Ensign," Specimen greeted me warmly on my first day back out of Sickbay as I delivered my usual warp reports to Spock. I allowed myself a small smile back at him that extended only to my lips, but that was warm all the same.

"Thank you, Captain," I replied casually, and chanced a look over to the conn., where Sulu and Chekov were not-so-discreetly craning their necks around to grin at me. Chekov brought his hand up to wave and beamed at me as Kirk coughed, pretending to look the other way, whistling. I smiled back at my friends, glad to see them. Nurse Chapel had explained to me that while I was dehydrated and unconscious, Chekov had rushed in to see me, only to be expressly forbidden from seeing me by an enraged Dr. McCoy, who still wandered around Medical, muttering under his breath about Russian insurgents in his sickbay.

"Mister Spock." It was also Spock's first day back on duty, but apparently Kirk had waited for my arrival to pester him with questions, knowing that I would enjoy seeing my emotionless superior being poked fun at.

"Captain," Spock replied, taking the reports without a glance or thanks from me.

Kirk grinned, and crossed one leg over his knee. "There's really something I don't understand about all of this. Maybe you can explain it to me. Logically, of course. When you jettisoned the fuel and ignited it, you knew there was virtually no chance of it being seen, yet you did it anyhow. That would seem to me to be an act of desperation," Kirk remarked, raising his eyebrows at Spock.

"Quite correct, Captain," Spock replied.

"Now we all know, and I'm sure the doctor will agree with me, that desperation is a highly emotional state of mind. How does your well-known logic explain that?"

"Quite simply, Captain. I examined the problem from all angles, and it was plainly hopeless. Logic informed me that under the circumstances, the only possible action would have to be one of desperation. Logical decision, logically arrived at," Spock rationally explained. I chewed on my lip to keep from laughing.

"I see," Kirk skeptically replied. "You mean you reasoned that it was time for an emotional outburst."

"Well, I wouldn't put it in exactly those terms, Captain, but those are essentially the facts," Spock demurred, looking a little miffed.

Kirk chuckled. "You're not going to admit that for the first time in your life, you committed a purely human emotional act?"

"No, sir."

"Mister Spock, you're a stubborn man."

"Yes, sir."


	7. Chapter 7

The Scientist

I paced anxiously back and forth across the linoleum tiled floor of the empty mess hall late at night, waiting for a little twerp known as Pavel Chekov to appear. It was my birthday, unknown to all but him, and he told me to wait after I got off my shift of bridge duty as Science Officer while Spock slept. I was still having trouble adjusting to the thirty-six hour day schedule of space, and in strange intervals bounced from extremely wired (so much so that I mistook an asteroid for a Romulan mining probe, to Hikaru Sulu's irritation as he dozed lightly at the conn) to exhausted. I was in the wired state right now, and was beginning to feel sad that Chekov may have forgotten.

But he couldn't have, I thought, because he apparently told Sulu, who wished me a happy birthday when he came in to share the nightly bridge duty. Nobody else remembered except Scotty, who was notorious for his epic calendar of the entire crew's birthdays down on the engineering deck and radioed up to me on the Science deck in the morning. Unfortunately, I didn't have any other well-wishers, since I don't generally have much contact with Engineering.

I sat down at an empty plastic chair with a heavy sigh and rested my chin on the tabletop, chancing to close my eyes for just…one…second…

"_Carly_! Are ju ookey? Do ju need to be taken to Medwical?" I blinked, my eyes unfocused as a hazy, grey looking Chekov loomed over me. "Lights."

I jerked awake abruptly, squinting in the sudden glaring lights. "Oh, so now you show up," I grumbled, rubbing at my slightly numb face, trying to yawn the sleepy exhaustion away. _Men_.

Chekov looked like he was going to cry as he stood beside me, staring at his shoes as I snarled at him. "I'm sowree."

"Oh, stuff it," I said with a sigh, staggering to my feet. Chekov held out a poorly wrapped _something_.

"I got ju a birthday present," he mumbled, and I stared blankly at him. When could he have possibly had the time to get a birthday present? We hadn't even had shore leave yet (it has been six months). Captain Kirk apparently had some sort of grudge against personal free time.

"Oh, you didn't have to!" I exclaimed, all my frustration at him dissolving with the pleasure of receiving presents. I tried to take it from him, but Chekov tugged it away from me, a mischievous glint in his eyes now that he knew that I didn't want to kill him.

"Now, this ees no place to open a gift," he joked with a snide smile, and I allowed him to grab my hand a drag me to the highest deck of the ship for viewing constellations. I had only been there once on my initial tour of the starship, and didn't have the clearance to access it whenever I wanted. Apparently tactical officers did, and Chekov got in with voice recognition (he only had to repeat the authorization code twice).

I sighed in appreciation of the beauty of the galaxy around us. We were approaching a nebula slowly but steadily, and the beautiful purple and gold swirls expanded in a pattern that resembled an opening flower to the north.

"It's beautiful," I remarked, sitting down on the deck close to the large viewscreen. Chekov sat down close beside me, and rested a hand on one of my shoulders.

"I've missed you," he replied regretfully, and I cocked my head slightly to one side, unsure how to reply. "When I first detectwed the nebula, I wanted to show ju, but ju weren't there. I turned around and all I saw vas Spock, giwing me a creepy Wulcan glare."

I laughed lightly, knowing exactly what he meant. "He does that sometimes," I said, doing my best impression, and mimicking his voice. "_Fascinating_."

"Zat's vhat he said too!" Chekov exclaimed, bursting into laughter with an overly excited hand gesture. "Ju should open jour present now."

I smiled and accepted it from him, carefully peeling back the taped corners so I didn't rip the paper. Chekov made impatient little noises as I opened it gradually, and I could tell he was resisting the urge to snatch it from me and rip it open. I went even slower just to annoy him, and smiled at his gift. It was a pen-and-paper journal, and I looked at him in surprise even though I was pleased. I usually took notes on a Starfleet-issued PADD, although I did have an affinity for the pretty blue pages.

"Eet's not for Science things," Pavel explained with great superiority in his voice, staring down his nose at me, knowing just what I was thinking. "If I _ever_ see any microbiology in eet, jour…I don't know. Somethwing bad."

"Okay, then what do you want me to write in it? I _am_ a scientist," I replied, sticking my hands on my hips and trying to appear superior, which was tough sitting down. He looked amused.

"Well, I was thinkwing, since we don't see each other wery much anymore, ju could write down what happens to ju, and I'll write down what happens to me, and when we have time we can trade and read them rather than trying to remember and tell each other everythwing," Chekov explained, looking slightly embarrassed, as if now he thought it was a bad idea. I actually thought it was rather sweet.

"That sounds great to me," I said with a grin. "I can make a tally of how many times Ensign West forgets the equation for the boundary conditions at the surface of a dielectric!"

Pavel looked slightly worried, but replied, "And I'll tally how many times Spock calls something _fascinating_. Ju should buy him a thesaurus for his birthday."

I snickered, and wondered what Spock's reaction to that would be. Then I wondered if Vulcans even celebrated birthdays. "That would be illogical," I replied, and Chekov snorted in a manner unbecoming for an aspiring Captain. After a few moments of comfortable silence in the darkness of the unoccupied viewing deck, we curled together and laid down side-by-side to look at the constellations slowly circling over us in the clear arched dome, the heavenly image of the nebula expanding up into timeless eternity.

I forgot about my new journal until I took my customary heap of various data pads and handwritten notes to the Molecular Research Lab on Deck Nineteen to finish my work for the day away from the chaos of the Science Department proper. It was hard to concentrate when Ensign West kept making smoochy noises behind me whenever Spock's name came up in background conversation. As I was sorting through my habitual mess, I came across the little blue notebook and opened it up with a smile.

_Stardate 2260.42. Well, I've gone and made a mess again. This morning I accidentally broke Lieutenant Rhea's nose when I was opening the incubator in Lab 6. I feel really bad about it, but she was standing a little close. Ensign West's gotten it in his head that because Spock and I both have pointy ears, we're destined to be together and makes obnoxious comments at regular ten minute intervals. Therefore, since I'm tired of people making remarks about bloody noses and pointy ear fetishes, I'm sitting in the Molecular Research Lab, writing this, and trying not to think about how many gravitational readings I have to balance to keep the Enterprise from falling out of warp. Sometimes I wonder what Spock is doing up there on the bridge since he always assigns me so much work…_

My writing ceased as the white doors slithered open and Spock confidently strode into the room, stopping to stand for a moment as he observed me sitting at one of the many computer terminals available. Speak of the devil and the devil shall come.

"You're in my seat," he stated blankly. I awkwardly waved at him, Spock elicited no reply, and sat down uncomfortably at the terminal right next to me that my papers were spilling over into instead of taking one of the eleven other available ones. He appeared to cringe as he observed my disorganization and gingerly pushed my disarray of PADDs aside with his evenly stacked pile of print-outs of the electromagnetic fields of Delta Vega.

I chewed on the tip of my silver metal pen, wondering whether or not I should say something to him. I tried my hardest not to stare at him, and instead looked over his shoulder and watched the monitor he was using. Spock was calculating badly today, and had to redo his work several times before he got it right. I was surprised, I had solved for the variable within half of the time it took him.

He ceased typing, sighed deeply, and looked evenly at me as I was mid-gnaw on my pen. "Oh, sorry," I blurted out into the dead air, pulling the pen from my lips.

"Thank you," Spock tonelessly said, turning back to his monitor. I turned back to the open page of my journal. _Tell Sulu that Spock hates it when people chew on their pens,_ I wrote furiously with a clever grin, imagining the entire bridge pulling out pens and chomping on their ends until Spock runs from the room to roam the cluttered corridors of Science weeping. Then I noted that Spock was trying to discreetly see what I was writing and I snapped the notebook shut and pulled up some star charts on the monitor to make it look like I was diligently carrying out orders.

"Hey, Spock," I asked slowly. "Can I ask you something?"

He turned to face me, and looked faintly puzzled. "I assume it does not have anything to do with your gravitational calculations?"

"Er, no," I answered, almost wishing I hadn't said anything. He just sat there, waiting. I took a deep breath. "Do Vulcans have birthdays?"

Spock just blinked, and his slanted eyebrows actually contracted. Wow. That was the most emotional response I had ever gotten out of him. "Well, the date of our birth is recorded, of course, but we do not celebrate the anniversary of our births as is common among Earthmen," he explained patiently. "Why do you ask?"

Now it was my turn to be taken aback. "Well, if you have to know, yesterday was my birthday," I quietly said, twirling my pen quickly through my fingers. "Just curious."

Spock stared at me for a while, and now it was my turn to produce some of the worst calculation errors I had ever made until I gave up, utterly flustered beyond belief, and fled the Molecular Research Lab, cursing stupid Vulcan men and their awkward staring habits. He should really read a book on manners, sometime. That and a thesaurus.

I had just reached the door when Spock cleared his throat.

"Ensign Battaglia," he said, turning around in his chair to face me. I paused. "I believe the appropriate saying is…Happy Birthday."

I think that even my pointed ears turned red as I practically ran from the lab. "Thank you, sir."


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Sorry about posting one of these when I hate authors who do, but this chapter deserves an explanation. So, I wrote this whole thing, re-read it, then realized "Oh no! This is *way* too explicit to even be rated M on this website!" Then I had to edit the crap out of it, actually change the plot, only to find that it didn't make any sense and did nothing but further the relationship/personal aspect of the story, which made me mad, however I couldn't just skip this chapter and write it in somewhere else, so here it is: the Random Chapter that doesn't make any sense because I wanted to keep my rating and didn't want to burn everyone's corneas and get reported…again. So please, when you review, don't judge on the randomness, because I swear it wasn't, but had to edit a lot of it out because it truthfully wasn't appropriate for teenaged readers._

_On another note, YAY 100 PAGES WOO-HOO! xD_

The Scientist

Time passed, as it always does when one is very busy and does little but work, eat, sleep, rinse, lather, and repeat. I reawakened my experiment to understand mankind, and isolated my control group one day in the male dominated Research Lab on Deck 6.

"I'd just like to take a few minutes of your time, if you could just answer a few questions for me it would be really helpful for an experiment I'm conducting," I said briskly while passing out paper to each of my subjects, of varying levels of nerdiness. "Just answer the questions to the best of your ability and-"

"Excuse me?" Ensign West raised his hand after skimming his questions. I tried not to grit my teeth and growl.

"What is it?" I narrowed my eyes at him threateningly.

"Why do you have to know how many sexual partners I've had?" he asked, one of his comrades snickering and the rest looking rather sad as they answered number 8 with little zeroes.

"It's a double-blind, and your name won't be recorded, so just answer the stupid question or I'll put you all down for zero," I snapped at him and leaned against a white table laden with monitors and PADDs as the group grumpily worked through my hand-out. I felt rather pleased with myself, maybe my study was finally getting somewhere, after all.

"And this is Research," the Captain's lofty voice drifted through the doors as they slithered apart, revealing the Captain and his First Officer, Spock, leading a group of ambassadors on a tour. Almost immediately, the group of scientists scattered in a flurry of motion, gluing themselves to monitors and data, shuffling papers and looking rather busy. I jammed my face so eagerly to a microscope by West, who lounged casually with a cup of coffee and a stack of PADDs, that I hit my nose on the eyepiece and swore under my breath while my eyes streamed and he snorted coffee up his nose in an attempt not to laugh.

"Ouch, it burns!" he yowled, and I glared at him with as much heat as I could muster as the group approached us.

"This is Ensign Battaglia, our Second Science Officer," Kirk said, gesturing to me as West wiped rather hopelessly at the splotch of brown on his blue shirt. Their eyes inspected both of us with clear disapproval, and I nervously smiled and waved.

"Hi," I awkwardly said, and was regarded with seven unimpressed stares. Kirk quickly stepped forward to alleviate the situation since Spock was among those blankly staring.

"Ensign Battaglia is our leading field researcher," Kirk hastened to say. "She's one of our youngest senior officers, but has proven herself invaluable in the field."

_If invaluable means tripping over your own foot and accidentally shooting a sniper Kligon hiding in a bush because you just happened to be holding your phaser,_ I sourly thought, but smiled widely at the ambassadors anyways.

The _Enterprise_ was serving as host to a sort of intergalactic shindig, in layman's words, providing security and neutral territory for several Federation planets and systems who were all but at war with each other over some stupid dilithium mines on a wandering asteroid. Federation representatives had beamed aboard as well to work out a diplomatic solution to the problem, although the talks were not going well at all currently and we had been in orbit around Sareen VII for about a week and tensions were running high. I tried to avoid our guests as much as possible, spending all my spare time down in Engineering with Scotty, Sulu and Chekov (who were also trying to avoid said ambassadors), since in this situation a spilled drink or a tripped foot could start a war.

"Congratulations to such a lovely young lady on her success," an alien woman ambassador with purple skin and antennae said, smiling widely at me. I smiled warily back. I liked the Andorians a lot better than the other people we were dealing with, they were actually tried to stay out of the way of the crew. Unfortunately, they were a notoriously aggressive and warlike race, and leaving an insult unreturned was simply out of the question to them.

Another ambassador snorted. "If she's lovely than my wife's a goddess," he growled. "Andorians. No taste at all."

This caused the purple-skinned men in the group to bristle, and Kirk warily stepped between them. This didn't do too much until Spock stared the instigating ambassador down with his cold, emotionless Vulcan eyes.

"Is there a problem, Ambassador Nissen?" he coolly said. The man seemed to quail a little bit under his gaze.

"Well, this has been fun, now who wants to see the observation deck?" Kirk interrupted, grinning around at his group of unfriendly faces and finally beamed at me, then left. I sighed in relief.

Like I said, tension, and no work getting done.

"Spock did _that_?" Scotty said in disbelief as our little hidden club lurked in the engine room with replicated sandwiches as I retold my latest encounter with the ambassadors.

"Ah, I'll just be glad when all this is over," Sulu moaned. "I've got a headache from listening to that Andorian prime minister prattle on all day about astrophysics on the bridge. They'd better get a deal worked out soon or I'll fire a torpedo at the stupid asteroid and finish the damn war."

Chekov and I grinned at each other and laughed. He was reading my journal so we could catch up in one hand, and had the other arm draped around my shoulders lazily. I had been waiting for Scotty or Sulu to say something, but surprisingly, neither of them did.

I was just getting comfortable when the heavy metal engine room door was thrown open and bounced on its hinges, and an elated Engineer bounded through.

"They did it! The Andorians and Galeans finally worked out a deal!" he excitedly reported, and let out a whoop of joy. "I can have my quarters back! Yes!"

I just about cracked up. Well, it could have been worse.

"How? What did they do?"

"The Galeans get control of the asteroid and its mines, but a third of the profits go to the Andorians since it's in their gravitational field. Everyone's about equally unhappy, so it all works out." The young engineer shrugged, still grinning, and addressed Scotty. "The Captain asked me to tell you, sir, all the senior officers are supposed to attend the final ceremony and dinner party to celebrate the treaty tomorrow night."

Scotty grinned in excitement. "I get to wear my kilt!"

I would have burst out laughing with Sulu and Chekov, except a sinking feeling grew in my stomach.

"Why the long face, Carly?" Sulu asked, and Chekov poked my cheek.

"_I'm_ a senior officer," I said with all the morbid dread of someone about to attend a funeral. "That means I'll have to go."

"Lassie, we all do, it'll be fun," Scotty reassured me. "Why, worried no one will dance with ye?"

I shook my head, feeling mortified. "No, that's the last thing I'm worried about. What if I spill wine on some ambassador and he calls off the treaty? You know I would."

My three friends as a whole scoffed at this idea, and promised to keep any liquids that could possibly leave a stain away from me.

"Don't worry, _I'll_ dance with you, Carly," Sulu proclaimed, winking at me.

"Hey! Vhat if I want to dance with her?" Chekov protested.

"Too late. I call dibs."

"Vhat!"

I ducked my head so Scotty wouldn't see it had turned pink, right to the tips of my ears. Judging by the way he was laughing, he probably didn't need to see me to know it had. Chekov kept arguing with Sulu for the rest of the evening as we broke out the cards and played some poker. I always lost rather badly, but it was still fun anyways, especially when the Captain and Dr. McCoy occasionally joined. It didn't look like Jim or Bones would show up tonight, though, they probably had their hands full with the preparation for the ceremonies.

"You know, Carly, you've got a pretty bad poker face for a Vulcan," Sulu remarked, flicking playfully at one of my ears. Chekov made a noise that I can only liken to a cat about to be thrown into a bathtub full of soapy water. Scotty snorted into his cup of coffee and patted the Russian on the shoulder, who was glaring across the table at his friend.

"Only part Vulcan, Lieutenant," I muttered, looking pitifully at my small pile of chips. "I actually never met another one until Spock. Ugh, I fold."

Chekov showed his cards, which was only a pair, and Scotty cackled, proclaiming his flush, and scooped the pot to him, wiping my friend out. The Russian headed for his quarters with a sorry expression on his face, bidding us good night and tugging on my ponytail with a crooked smile that I hadn't seen in a while. I fought the urge for a split-second to leap to my feet and throw my arms around him, but simply smiled and turned my attention back to trying to preserve my dignity at least another two rounds. I did catch the engineer and the navigator exchanging a sideways glance, and put my best Vulcan face on.

"What d'you mean, never met another Vulcan? Wasn't your father-" Scotty asked curiously, and I shook my head and interrupted.

"My paternal grandfather. At least, as far as I know. Mom says my father was half Vulcan and took off before I was born. We were just a pit stop on his path to exploring the galaxy and logical enlightenment." I frowned deeply at my cards, not wanting to think about my hurtful memories as a child, growing up as the pointy-eared freak with my normal colonist family and human stepsisters, and Mom's blatant refusal to tell me anything specific about my mysterious traveling father. I didn't even know his name. "I joined Starfleet hoping I'd find a way of contacting him, but I was wrong. There aren't any reports of Vulcans in the Mars Colony for years surrounding my birth. Whoever he was, he must have been some kind of free agent, but I'll never know. I'm not sure if I want to," I lamely finished.

"Unregistered?" Scotty asked dubiously.

"Well, he couldn't have been," Sulu reasoned curiously. "Even private vessels are required to register their ship's logs with the Federation, there should have been some kind of record of traveling Vulcans…"

"There's not," I firmly said, feeling angry that my friends didn't believe me. "Trust me. D'you think I didn't I spend years trying to find him? No one visited my homeworld other than the usual passing colonists or smugglers, a few starships and a Romulan invasion party, but never any Vulcans. I would think that my mother made it all up, except the evidence says otherwise." I fingered the curve of one of my ears with an expression of annoyance at my friends for thinking that I hadn't exhausted all my options. Sulu looked especially startled at my sudden outburst.

"No need to get so defensive about it, lassie, we're only trying to help," Scotty gently soothed me, and I released the scowl I hadn't realized was on my face and relaxed my tense, angry muscles.

"I'm…sorry," I stammered, feeling exhausted all of the sudden. "I don't know what's gotten into me."

"It's fine, I shouldn't have pressed," Sulu said kindly to me. "I think we've had enough poker for a night."

I shakily got to my feet, not used to feeling such a rush of uncontrolled anger at something so trivial. As I walked back across the ship to my quarters, I told myself it was just my usual human parts coming through, and dismissed my actions as reasonable given the touchy subject matter.

_But whywhywhy?_ A nasty voice inside my head kept asking me late into the night, gnawing away at my insides as I tried to sleep and fell into uncomfortable dreams of showing up at the stupid party in nothing but my underwear and dancing with Kirk, who kept stepping all over my feet…

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

Enraged, I positively pummeled my alarm clock with my fist as the lights in my officer's quarters slowly cycled through their pleasant imitation of the rising sun. I blinked in confusion when I saw that I had actually smashed my alarm clock, and that the beeping hadn't stopped. That was when I realized that someone was pressing the button to essentially ring the doorbell to my quarters.

I poked the panel to open it, and glared out into the corridor, ready to tell off whoever it was for waking me up until I came nose-to-nose (or rather, nose-to-chest) with Spock.

"I…oh!" I exclaimed, rubbing my eyes as I gawked up at my commanding officer, pulling my rumpled t-shirt down over my exposed underpants. "Spock. Uh, Commander. Sir. Hi."

"Good morning, Ensign," Spock greeted me casually, his expressionless eyes taking in my disheveled appearance and peering over my shoulders at my messy quarters. I stepped in his way so he wouldn't see the dirty socks.

"Need something?" I asked, as surprised as he was by my hostile tone. I have _got_ to stop doing that. "Sorry. No offense."

"None taken. I expected you to be awake. Has Engineer Scott informed you that as a senior officer you will be expected to attend the Ambassador's Gala at eighteen-hundred hours?" Spock evenly said.

"Er, yeah, actually," I replied, still feeling rather groggy. I stifled a yawn.

"Has he told you that you will be expected to present yourself in full dress uniform, and behave in a manner according to your representation of the United Federation of Planets?"

I glared sourly up at my commanding officer. "No, he skipped that part. Dress uniform? I haven't got one."

"I would expect not. Women officers generally wear individual formal wear to such events instead of wearing the same uniform as their men colleagues, although I am sure you could replicate a male uniform. A most illogical practice, although the standardization of dress has always been a peculiar topic of argument among females…"

"Spock," I cut him off with a snap, and flinched again. "Sorry, sir. So you're saying I have to wear a dress?"

His eyebrows turned down in an interesting manner. "Yes, that is the gist of my presentation. Although, far more importantly, you must conduct yourself in a manner befitting-"

"I know, I get it, don't insult anyone or blow the treaty," I mumbled sleepily. "I'm off-duty for another two hours. Can I go back to sleep now?"

"I would suggest you replicate a new alarm clock, since tardiness to your post will not be dismissed despite your special circumstances," Spock evenly said, and I all but picked up the stupid thing and hurled it at his head. I settled for shutting my door in the Vulcan's face, and found it equally satisfying.

I tried going back to sleep, but was left with the mortifying obligation that I would have to find a gown to wear somewhere. I could always replicate one, although I really just wanted to wear the standard dress uniform, but knew that would look stupid since all the other women would be in gowns, not men's wear. I had to fix my alarm clock in any case, so I stomped down to the replicator and shoved my credit card in and gloomily flipped through the catalog, picking out a 'force resistant' alarm clock and tried finding a dress that I wouldn't be utterly humiliated wearing in front of my friends.

I watched as Lieutenant Uhura walked in the room, humming to herself, cheeks flushed, and picked up her own catalog and started flipping through it, only to turn around and jump to see me watching her.

"Oh! Ensign Battaglia! I didn't know anyone else was in here," she said, smiling at me with a degree of nervousness and settled down in the chair across from me. Who invited her? No one, of course. "Picking out a gown to wear, too?"

"Yeah," I muttered, turning back to my catalog. Fantastic. Well, at least no one would look at me when she was in the same room. "I wish they could just make a girls' dress uniform instead of making us wear stupid dresses."

Uhura laughed musically. "Come on, it won't be that bad! Believe me, the men positively _gawk_ at you at these kind of things. You'll want to wear something nice. Here, look at this one, what d'you think of that?"

She was pointing at something too short and bright green. I shuddered.

"No way, sir," I said, and she continued flipping through, trying to goad me into enjoying this, although I found it difficult pseudo-shopping with a woman who could make a potato sack look elegant.

"You don't need to call me sir when we aren't on duty, Ensign. How about this one?"

"Yikes. It'd look good on you, though."

By the end of my off-duty period, Uhura had something electric blue and slinky that she was very excited about (beats me why, since her date was Spock, not like he'd notice or anything), and I had settled on a long golden evening gown. I didn't know that fabric could be so soft when I pulled the filmy material out of the replicator, and would have rubbed my face in it if Ensign West hadn't been behind me making irritated little tutting noises since he wanted a comb, judging by the state of his hair.

Research was Research, there wasn't much to report except for a solar flare that was so textbook ordinary and un-exciting that one researcher actually fell asleep during our dutiful readings. Meanwhile, I was trying to create an equation that would tell me based on the height of the heel of the shoes I had replicated how much my feet would hurt at the end of the night in relation to how much I moved around in them. The conclusion: I would be hobbling around for a week if I walked more than ten feet.

"Oh, come on, aren't you even a _little_ excited?" West asked me when I reported my findings to him, and proceeded to reading the results of my survey of my male research team.

"No. I already told you, I'm terrified of stepping on an Andorian's foot and having my head ripped off. You've had eleven sexual partners?" I asked in disbelief, looking up from my surveys. "Yeah, right."

Ryan's face turned beet red, and he snatched the paper from my hands. "Give me that! You said our names weren't a part of your experiment!"

"They aren't."

"How'd you know?"

"Because question fourteen is a basic gravimetrics calculation and you're the only one who got it wrong."

Ryan's face went from beet red to eggplant purple and I leaned back away from him in my seat, wondering if he would explode out of sheer fury if he didn't take a breath soon.

At that precise moment, the bell signaling the change of shifts rang on all decks, and the majority of crewmen left for the evening, since a smaller portion was assigned for the night shift. I yawned and thought longingly of my bed, but knew that I would have to spend the next four hours in three inch heels with a room full of testy alien ambassadors, and that this was a situation that could only end badly.

I wasn't used to seeing so many people smile at me as I walked back to my quarters to change, since most of the time people either glare at me or keep a ten-foot distance depending on whether I'm holding anything sharp or breakable. In any case, I put on my dress and heels and proceeded to chew my fingernails and wishing that my research on men had progressed farther, since I would need it tonight. Five minutes after 0800 I slunk from my room and ducked from corner to alcove across the ship, hoping no one would see me. This was made very difficult by the length of my gown and the height of my glittery heels, and I distantly thought that maybe Cinderella had had something going after all by leaving her shoes behind at the ball.

"Ensign! Good to see you!" Captain Kirk loudly called to me the moment I stepped inside the doorway, waving to me from the center of a large group of tall, purple men and several stuffy, old Vulcans representing the Federation.

"Hi, Captain," I nervously replied as he began to chatter to me, head swiveling around like an owl's as I quickly tabulated which areas I should avoid: definitely the dance floor, the table laden with little crystal wine glasses, and most certainly the Galean women, who were watching the whole spectacle with narrow, malicious eyes and whispering gossip behind their hands to each other, looking positively radiant in their white gowns and completely in their element. The only part of the room that looked safe was the bar, which was crowded by a group of high-level engineers who looked particularly sulky. I felt like an elephant in a china shop. I thought carefully of what I should say to the Captain. "Have you seen Lieutenant Scott yet?"

Kirk looked surprised that I asked about the engineer. I had judged that Chekov and Sulu would probably be with him, and it would seem less like I was extra-keen on seeing Pavel if I asked about someone else. "No, I don't think he's here yet, haven't seen any tartan…"

The Captain passed me a glass of red liquor as we watched the higher-ranking crew filter in, and he provided me with inside information on some of the ambassadors, more like who had a hot wife. A beaming Uhura and a stone-faced Spock joined us, followed by an already drunk Dr. McCoy, and when some incredibly ancient Vulcans came over to talk with Spock about something that happened five billion centuries ago, I took a page out of the doctor's book and started into the Romulan ale that Kirk had passed me. The conversation got funnier the more I drank.

"You are also part-Vulcan," one of the elderly men stated, staring at me with what I could judge as faint disapproval as I chugged another crystal glass of alcohol.

"Yesh," I said, feeling the uncontrollable urge to giggle. "You're funny."

Uhura positively fell sideways into Spock with laughter after watching this exchange, and I was tapped on the shoulder.

"Scotty! Oh, thank God!" I exclaimed, and almost tripped on the hem of my dress getting up. "Oops, it was nice meeting you all, bye-bye."

Scotty's eyes were twinkling as he resisted a smile while dragging me away from the group of commanding officers and ambassadors. True to his word, instead of pants he was wearing a tartan kilt.

"Why did you take me away?" I whined.

"You told us to keep you away from things that leave a stain," he said with great amusement underneath his accent as I grabbed another glass of ale for both of us off another table. "Your boyfriends are over here, fighting gallantly for your hand in a dance. I don't think they knew they'd have to hold you up."

I giggled until I snorted again, and Scotty deposited me at a table occupied by a very self-satisfied Sulu and a sulking Pavel in red uniforms identical except for the rank pins on their collars.

"Y'know, if ye didn't argue with him, he wouldn't give you such a hard time," Scotty told the younger of the two, who scowled at him over a tall glass of something that seventeen year olds probably shouldn't drink and grumbled under his breath in Russian. "If I were ye, I'd dance with her before she passes out under the table."

"Hey!" I protested after taking another gulp of burning liquid. "I'm not _that_ drunk!"

"Of course you aren't," Sulu said, stifling laughter. "She's all yours', Pavel, I was only pulling your leg. I think I see some drunk ambassadors' wives who need a friend, Scotty."

"Ah, yes," Scotty said, grinning. "If you'll excuse us."

The two Lieutenants got up and straightened their uniforms while swaggering over to some inebriated looking green-skinned Orion women, and I heard Sulu mutter, "Five credits Carly passes out before he gets the guts up to ask…"

Instead of going to dance like our friends had wanted us to, we instead suctioned ourselves to the bar until the unhappy looking bartender refused to give us any more Romulan ale, frowning down his nose at us while saying that formal Federation functions were no place for teenagers, senior officers or not. I couldn't stop giggling anymore and found everything Pavel did incredibly funny, and we actually drank enough to try dancing together only to find that neither of us could walk in a straight line and sort of took turns leaning on each other and stepping on the other's feet. He kept forgetting to speak in English, and I continued to laugh and was actually rather sad when the whole thing was ending. It seemed like we had just started to have a good time together.

When I tried walking back to my quarters I realized that I was really, really drunk. I kept stumbling over my own feet and took off my heels and carried them so I wouldn't fall, and leaned heavily on Pavel, snuggling my face into his arm and sighing happily as we slowly staggered back together through the deserted gray corridors.

"Vhat d'you vant me to do, carry you?" Pavel grumbled as I leaned on him too heavily and caused him to topple sideways into a wall. I snickered.

"That'd be nice," some incredibly stupid part of me said, and more giggling bubbled up from both of us. He swung me up in his arms, swaying off-balance dangerously, and we tipsily made our way back to his shared room with Sulu, where he finally put me down and nearly collapsed into me, throwing an arm around my shoulders and leaning heavily. I could smell the alcohol on both of us, it was that bad, but we just stood there silently, breathing heavily for a few moments, catching our breath.

"I'm drunk," he slurred, and I burst out laughing. Really? I giggled uncontrollably, laughing myself breathless again until I was doubled over.

"Me too."

Before I could think and faster than I could trip over my own foot, his lips crashed down into mine and his hands were everywhere, in my hair, on my silky gold dress, down my legs, all at once, and in the heat I could not, would not, do anything but respond with equal passion and enthusiasm as we fell further into the hole our blood-alcohol levels had dug for us.

"Mmnnuggh," I groaned as I crawled my way back to awareness and tried to sit up. My head pounded with the smallest movement like someone had taken a drill to it last night, and I clutched it with a moan of pain. _So this is what a hangover feels like, huh,_ I thought foggily, and clumsily rubbed my tired, puffy eyes with the back of my hand. I was really warm, and just wanted to go back to sleep, except that my pillow was hard in all the wrong places…

Despite the pain, I opened my eyes to little slits and propped myself up on my elbows and squinted around. I was still in my silky gold evening gown, much disheveled, in Pavel's room, with no recollection of the events of last night beyond having my face molested in the outside corridor.

_Pillows don't breathe_, I slowly thought, and rolled over in the tangle of sheets, and was faced with my still unconscious and equally disheveled friend.

"Oh my God!" I flung myself backwards, untangling myself from Pavel and the sheets in a frenzied motion that landed me on the floor, and my head took that fall as a cue to pound several nauseating times as I flailed in panic. "Oh my God!"

I tried shaking my friend's arm to wake him up despite the impending destruction of our friendship to no avail, he was thoroughly unconscious and didn't look like he would be moving any time soon. I panicked and wondered if he had alcohol poisoning and died, but then I remembered that he was still breathing at least, and I felt his pulse. A sluggish and unsteady heartbeat was better than none at all.

"Oh, please, wake up!" I wailed, and looked around the room for something that might aid my cause. My eyes fell on his alarm clock, which was blinking 0830 at me. I gulped in terror. I was on duty half an hour ago, but I couldn't just leave him here like this, could I?

I heard the beeping of a keypad out in the hallway and fell silent, not wanting to alert anyone to my presence here and undergo more embarrassment and humiliation. Of course, the door to Pavel's room slid open, and an equally hung over and tired Sulu staggered inside immediately, hand over his bloodshot eyes as he sighed in relief at the darkness.

"Pavel, please tell me you have painkillers," he groaned, and then promptly tripped over me as I tried to scurry under the bed to hide. "Argh! What the hell!"

"Shhh!" I hissed as Hikaru clutched his knee on the floor and I rubbed the back of my head where it had connected rather painfully. I didn't like the look the helmsman was giving me, even though his face was barely visible in the dim light Pavel's alarm clock gave off.

"What? _Carly?_ What—what did you _do_?" Sulu asked, sounding as mortified as I felt. "Is he okay?"

"You tell me, I don't remember anything! And I think so, he's breathing, at least," I explained. "You have any idea how much we drank?"

Sulu made a noise like a furious lawnmower. "Too much. I never should have let Scotty talk me into leaving you two alone! But you really don't remember _anything_?"

"I—No, not much," I stammered, thankful that the dim gray light hid my blush. "Hikaru, what am I gonna do? I was on duty thirty minutes ago! Spock's going to kill me!"

The helmsman chewed on his thumbnail in a manner identical to the way I did when I was nervous, probably a bad habit he got from me. "I'm not on duty for another hour, I'll try to wake him up and find out what happened. Uhh…go tell Spock you're sick or something, and go to Sickbay, and I'll meet you there. Carly, you have to calm down, I know you're scared, but maybe this will all turn out for the best, huh?"

He squeezed my arm gently, and I realized that I had been wringing my hands and was nearly hysterical. I took a few gulps of air and tried to calm down and think about what I had to do.

"Just go tell Spock you're sick," he urged me, and hauled me up and pushed me towards the door. I could have easily resisted, I was probably stronger than Sulu, but dragging my feet made my head pound, and judging by the grimace on his face he wasn't any better off than I was. "Don't worry about Pavel, I'll take care of him."

I nodded, believing the sincerity in my friend's tone. I hesitated at the door, though, after gathering my shoes and straightening my dress back to unexposed respectability.

"Hikaru," I slowly said, looking at his bloodshot eyes with my agonized ones. I motioned to my motionless friend on the bed. "He won't hate me, will he?"

Sulu actually laughed at this suggestion. "You've got to be kidding me."

I hung my head and fled the scene into the bright gray corridors, running past confused looking officers to my quarters, where I pulled my dress off and hurled it into a corner, then collapsed in tears on my bed.

_I'm such an idiot,_ I thought, and hopelessly tried to focus my alcohol-hazed memories of last night again. Finally my well of tears dried up and I was reminded of my human mother standing over me as a small child, hands on her hips, and a grim smile on her creased face. _"No use crying over spilt milk, Carlotta,"_ she'd say in her firm but chiding tone. I could only imagine what she'd say if she knew what happened last night. Then again, my mother couldn't really talk, having an affair with an unregistered half-Vulcan wandering scientist and all.

Despite my aching head, I hauled myself into my blue Starfleet uniform, and was just about to head down to the bridge to face the music when the familiar beeping of someone trying to force their way into my room sounded again. I prayed that it wasn't Pavel, and wearily opened the door, calling "Come in."

I regretted the words the moment I said them when I saw a very tight-lipped Spock standing outside, hands clasped behind his back.

"C-Commander," I stuttered, and he stepped forward into my quarters.

"Ensign, I did not receive your warp reports this morning," he said, plowing on over my weak stammers. "In fact, I received no reports at all from the Research Department. The Science Deck is in chaos due to the absence of its commanding officer and I was forced to abandon my duties as First Officer on the bridge to maintain order."

I audibly gulped, and hung my head in shame, wishing Spock could talk a little quieter. At the same time, I felt angry at him for barging in on me, and angry at myself for my own irresponsibility.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Furthermore, the _Enterprise_ has fallen out of warp due to incorrect calculations by a certain Ensign West after crossing into a heavy gravitational field around Omicron Theta. The damaged caused to our warp drive will delay our mission by seventeen hours, which is delivering vital medical supplies to plague victims on Cameroon Dom II, and the consequences of your irresponsibility will be paid in lives, Ensign," Spock said coldly, and I felt my eyes stinging as I stared at my shoes in shame.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"I also regret that I misjudged you, Ensign," Spock evenly said, which only made more tears gather in my eyes. "I believed that you were mature enough to be assigned to a position of senior command despite your youth, and I regret the emotional disturbance that I have brought to you."

I sniffled pathetically, and wiped furiously at my eyes. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that he wasn't the reason I was upset at all. Spock shifted his weight back and forth, as if uncomfortable.

"I am equally regretful that you did not enjoy attending the Ambassador's Gala."

"Oh, I enjoyed it," I sarcastically said. "I just don't remember much of it. And my best friend hates me now. And Scotty probably isn't very happy with me, either. And plague victims are dying because of me. Can I go to Sickbay, or are you going to shoot me and put me out of my misery?"

Spock blinked and wavered hesitantly as I glared at him hotly through watery, puffy eyes.

"Starfleet Academy's Human Psychology 101 did not adequately prepare me for the dilemmas of adolescent girls," Spock muttered under his breath, his dark eyes scanning my face almost furiously as he tried to reason what was the most logical thing to do. Then he reached forward and patted my shoulder twice. "There, there."

I glared at him, and he immediately removed his hand.

"Most illogical," he said. I probably turned green like the Hulk since he hastily corrected his sentence. "Ensign, you are to report to Sickbay and upon release, you are confined to quarters until further notice. I will complete your assigned duties until the Captain decides the date of your return."

"Yes, sir," I mumbled, feeling utterly like a pile of crap. I followed Spock out of my room and trailed after him down the corridor to the turbolift to Sickbay, when the last thing I wanted to do was be poked and prodded by Bones, who probably had a regular lecture complete with diagrams prepared for me.

_Well, at least things can't get much worse_, I bitterly thought.

What I didn't know at the time was that they could, and would.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I own nothing, I intend to copy nothing from Gene, I'm just a poor college student with no social life who really likes tribbles.

The Scientist

For the next several days, after recovering from my massive hangover, I was exiled to the lower science research decks by Spock where my usual post was, which aided my situation by helping me to avoid Pavel. Saying I was confused was an understatement, in fact I had no idea how I felt, or how I should feel. I didn't want to think about anything, or talk about anything, and isolated myself from my friends. Sulu spent his time on the bridge with Chekov, Scotty seemed to be giving me the silent treatment after we had a short argument about how I was treating my relationship with my best friend, and I was left spending my off-duty time with Spock learning Vulcan combat techniques or helping him with experiments to boost sensor range. Not exactly what most sentient beings call fun.

The instant I thought of this and my mind wandered, I found myself flat on the floor with a giant bruise on my collarbone, and was instantly furious as I glared up at Spock, who was leaning over me, feeling my pulse.

"I thought we agreed nerve-pinch was unfair," I growled as I pushed myself up on my elbows, rubbing my forehead as I felt a headache coming on. Spock stared blankly at me.

"I remember no such agreement. It would have been illogical," he said flatly, and I couldn't help but wistfully think of playing card games with Pavel or sitting on the observation deck watching stars and talking instead of doing science experiments and getting my butt kicked.

I simply sighed. "Can you play poker?"

Spock's slanted eyebrows contracted slightly. "Is this a human slang term that I am unfamiliar with? If it is a reference to anything sexual, I must decline…"

"Urgh, never mind. You're the worst best friend ever, you know that, don't you?" I asked him. Spock still looked puzzled, so I shook my head and hauled myself up off the floor, gathering my bag of scientific equipment that I had been using to help boost the sensor range with Spock earlier. It was rather heavy, and I had to stand crooked or else I felt like my shoulder was going to fall off. "See you later."

"Where are you going? I believe a human friend would accompany you, so I shall do the same," Spock said, following me.

"I don't know. Somewhere where I can be alone." One of very few good things about hanging out with Spock was he never got offended, because he simply didn't feel anything, and I could snap at him all I wanted and he didn't care, in fact he probably considered it logical to vent my inner conflict at someone, and if the target was him, so be it. I hated feeling like this. I did feel bad about how I was treating my friends, and recognized that it was essentially my own fault. I was constantly lonely, but then when I was around people I only wanted to be left alone again. I knew what I wanted, ached for it, but at the same time was terrified of it. It would change our friendship forever, could compromise both our careers in Starfleet, and there would be no going back. I just needed time to think.

"Are you still attempting to avoid contact with Ensign Chekov?"

I looked up darkly at Spock. "So what if I am?"

"In my experience, running away from problems is illogical, as it will never solve them."

I sighed heavily again. "I know." I hung my head. "I just…need some time to think." I remembered his connection to Uhura, and decided to confide in the Vulcan after chewing on my lip for a moment. "You would understand more than anyone that relationships…change things."

"May I recommend Cargo Bay 2, then? I find it an excellent place to meditate on the hormone fluctuations of the opposite sex." He gestured to the corridor to his left, and I followed Spock curiously down the empty hallway. Cargo Bay 2 was blissfully quiet and still, with a huge external door covered by a force field that looked out into space, and was full of huge cylindrical containers of what I assumed were chemicals. Spock departed in his usual odd way without a word, since saying good-bye was "illogical since he saw me approximately twenty-seven times every day." I took a deep breath and rested my head against the cool metal panel of the wall while sinking down to the floor, and tried to bring order to my thoughts. I hardly knew where to begin, so I began at the beginning.

The _Enterprise_ had recently finished a mission after the fiasco with the Ambassador's Gala, and our next assignment did not begin for several days, so we were enjoying a welcome break from our duties. The Captain was giving a tour of the _Enterprise_ to three lucky grade-school aged children who won a big science contest on Earth. I felt pretty sorry for them all. I liked kids enough, but always felt like I bored them. Whenever I held babies back when I was living in the Mars colony with my family, they would start wailing instantly once I touched them, like I was doing something wrong. I couldn't ever imagine being a mother.

Then I thought about how kids were made, and about my own memories, or lack thereof, and flinched as I recalled the birds-and-the-bees lecture Bones gave me once he cornered me. Stupid Romulan ale. Should be illegal. Actually, it probably was illegal. Even so, I began to prepare a petition to make it so in my mind while obnoxious disordered mathematical equations floated around in my head.

That was when the automated doors to the cargo bay slithered open, and I jumped to my feet, feeling bad for whatever security team I had freaked out by being in here unauthorized.

"Sorry, I know I don't have clearance…" I began, but it wasn't a curious security patrol standing in the cargo bay entrance, it was someone far worse. The bottom of my stomach dropped out.

"Carly! I've been looking for ju everywhere! Vhy are ju in here? Is Spock making you run funny tests on the plasma conduits again?" he asked while smiling happily at me. "Vhy 'ave you been avoiding me? Vhat did I do wrong?"

Now I really felt horrible, and covered my face with my hands and groaned. "You didn't do anything, it's… wow, I want to hit myself for saying this, but it's not you, it's me," I finished lamely, knowing that I had hurt his feelings a lot by avoiding him for the past week.

"It's about the party, isn't it?" he asked, looking sadder. I pointedly looked at our shoes and shrugged.

"That's no excuse to ignore you," I muttered in a small voice, eyes stinging. "You're my best friend. I'm just…"

"Confused?" he helpfully supplied. I nodded in agreement, and a bazillion other adjectives floated up to my mind. _Terrified, muddled, desperate, lonely, hopelessly in…no, I won't say it… _There was a long pause, and I felt his eyes on me, and the pressure of his hand on my shoulder as he stepped closer.

"Ju don't 'ave to be, Carly," he quietly said, tilting my face up to his with a finger under my chin. "I…"

I have no idea what he was going to say, because suddenly we lost power and the ship gave a violent lurch. We both yelled as we were thrown off our feet across the cargo bay, along with the barrels of chemicals, hammering the floor as they rolled. After a moment of darkness the Red Alert siren began wailing and the only illumination was the dim flashing red light over the door. My head pounded as I tried to orient myself again before the ship gave another tremendous lurch as _something_ hit us.

Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu's head reeled as he staggered to his feet and collapsed into Chekov's vacated ops chair. _Of all the times to take a piss_, he thought bitterly, hoping his friend was all right.

"What happened?" the voice of Nyota Uhura groaned, musical even as she cursed in Swahili.

"Sensors are picking up subspace distortions and high energy particles directly to starboard," the scientist at the station usually occupied by either Spock or Carly reported, what was his name, Sulu thought, racking his memories, Ensign West? He had seen Carly and Chekov talking to him before, he was one of the other younger crew members…not important. Need to focus. Sulu rubbed his bruised skull and frowned at the ops panel.

"Looks like we ran into a quantum filament," Uhura reasoned. "Damage report?"

"We've lost primary life support," Sulu replied, hands flying over the familiar screens. "Switching to secondary systems. Impulse and warp engines are offline."

"There's another filament moving toward us, sir," West reported anxiously, strained face illuminated by the flashing red alert lights and sparks flickering over the panels.

"All decks brace for impact!" Uhura ordered, grabbing the back of the empty Captain's chair as the ship lurched and everything went dark with a huge thump. Sulu thought he heard an explosion of some sort, and flung himself backward from his console as sparks and flames erupted from it, and collided with Uhura's legs, taking her down with him. The one time he wished Kirk was on the bridge…

"Lieutenant?" Sulu shakily asked as the confusion receeded from his brain, and his military training responses began to kick in. He grabbed the fallen woman's elbow and helped her to her feet.

"I'm all right." Uhura didn't look too bad; she had a bruise on her left temple and looked distraught, but Sulu gave her credit for keeping tightly under control and moving to the Captain's chair, then pressing a button. "Medical team to the Bridge. Uhura to Sickbay. Uhura to Captain Kirk. Uhura to Engineering. Lieutenant Uhura to any crew member, please acknowledge."

Meanwhile, Ensign West tried to muscle the turbolift doors open, and pressed several buttons while Sulu fiddled with the main computer panel.

"Medical team to the Bridge," she repeated, a tinge of desperation in her voice.

"The computer's down. It looks like we still have impulse power but not much else," Sulu said. "Great time for the Captain to be off the bridge, huh?"

Uhura rubbed her arms, which were covered in goosebumps despite that life support was still online. They all tried not to look too closely at the unconscious, or worse, crew that were lying on the floor. They tended to them the best they could, and tried not to think about it too much. "Now what?"

"Lieutenants," West said, panting slightly. "The turbolifts aren't working. We're trapped up here."

"Okay. Clear the power shunt," Chekov calmly said as we worked on trying to force the cargo bay doors open. Surprisingly, the lights were still on, and neither of us were badly injured besides a few bruises. I tried not to look at Chekov too much, even though I could feel his eyes on me, we both knew that the most important thing was getting out of the cargo bay and finding out what had just happened, and ultimately get back to the bridge.

"The shunt is cleared," I reported, pressing a few buttons on my tricorder hooked into the wall computer. Chekov busily rearranged wires and circuits for the door where he had removed a panel of the wall to access the mechanism of the door itself.

"Wright. And bypass the flow current, and…" Chekov cursed in Russian when nothing happened. I groaned. "The computer still won't release the doors."

"Can we force them open?" I asked, frowning and flexing my hands. I still felt groggy from being hit with a barrel of chemicals, and leaned against the wall for a moment's rest, knowing that I would be the one trying to force the door in a few moments.

"We can try," Chekov said, not sounding particularly hopeful. "There's an emergency hand actuator."

"Just give me a minute. I have to rest." I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down. We weren't trapped, we were going to find a way out, get back to the bridge, and save the day. We were the crew of the _Enterprise_, after all.

I started feeling warm, and smiled, half hoping that he was holding me, when I realized in my fogged mind that he wasn't. "Pavel?"

"_Da_?"

"This wall is hot," I faintly said.

"Where?"

As I motioned to the wall beside me, something blew out of where Chekov had removed a panel in a flash of steam and green light and knocked him off his feet. I scrambled over to him in a clumsy run, tricorder banging against my hip.

"Pavel!" He rolled to his knees on the floor, obviously in pain. I knelt beside him and rested a hand on his back that trembled, and peered into his face, checking his pupil dilation for signs of a concussion. He was conscious, and mumbled something about bruises and cursed under his breath.

"I'm all wright," he muttered, waving me off, and gulped audibly. "But I think we've got a new problem."

I turned around to look at the open panel that had blasted him off his feet, and gasped.

"Oh, no. This isn't happening."

"One of the energy conduits must've ruptured and ignited the polyduranide inside the bulkhead," Pavel distantly mused, even though he knew that I probably didn't an explanation after seeing the green flames licking the plastoid walls. His voice was calm and a little high-pitched, like it got before he had to take quantum mechanics examinations. "That's a plasma fire."

I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and aimed the tricorder at it. "It's putting out a lot of radiation," I said quickly. "We can't stay in here very long."

My friend knelt down next to one of the chemical barrels that had toppled over when the ship was hit by…_whatever_…and rolled it over after a few seconds of grunting. By the way he went quiet, I assumed that whatever he was about to say wasn't good news.

"We've got a bigger probwem than zat," Chekov said. "Ze quaratum in these containers is used in emergency thruster packs. It's normally pretty stable stuff, but…" he said.

"When you expose quaratum to radiation, it has a way of exploding," I finished for him. _Great. Just when things couldn't get much worse._

"This is the Federation Starship Enterprise calling any vessel within range. We are in distress and need assistance. Please respond." Uhura sighed. "I'm still not sure we're even transmitting. I'll set the message on auto repeat and see if we get a response."

A forced grinding sound made all three conscious officers jump, and whirl around to see a turbolift door being forced open. Dr. Leonard McCoy hauled himself out of the stuck car and collapsed on his stomach on the bridge floor.

"Are you all right?" Uhura exclaimed as Sulu offered a hand to pull the wheezing doctor to his feet.

"I'm alive. What the hell happened?" he said, looking around at the devastation on the nonfunctional bridge.

"We were hit by a quantum filament," Sulu explained. "Most of our systems are down and we haven't been able to contact anyone off the bridge."

"Well, don't count on leaving through there," McCoy growled. "An emergency bulkhead closed just beneath that lift."

Sulu rolled his eyes and West went back to working on the computer. "Confinement mode," Sulu explained to the other officers.

"Right. Isolation protocol," McCoy echoed.

"I'm not really familiar with that protocol," Uhura piped up, her dark eyebrows contracting and creasing her smooth forehead.

"If the computer senses a hull breach, it automatically closes emergency bulkheads to isolate the breach. Until we can clear those bulkheads, we'll be cut off from the rest of the ship," Sulu explained patiently, and Uhura slowly nodded.

"I have partial sensors back online," West triumphantly exclaimed. "I'm picking up sporadic life signs throughout the saucer section. There are definitely survivors."

"What about Main Engineering?" Sulu asked, crossing his fingers.

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, the readings aren't that specific," West replied.

"Can you scan the drive section?" Uhura said, and West glanced up at her in confusion. "It's where and Spock and the Captain should be."

West typed several commands and his eyes flickered back and forth across the screen. Sulu's opinion of the Ensign went up slightly, maybe someone in Reasearch other than Carly and Spock did know what they were doing. "I'm not reading any life signs in the drive section."

Uhura's lower lip trembled, but her voice remained even. "Could the sensors be malfunctioning?"

"There's no to know. Without the main computer, I can't run a full diagnostic," West replied.

"We need to start emergency procedures," McCoy said briskly. "So, we're short Jim and Spock, and Scotty's missing. Who's the duty officer?"

"Well, Commander Farren was, but she's…she's dead. Without her, it falls to the next highest ranking officer. I believe you're the senior officer on the deck, Bones," Uhura said cautiously.

"Doctor McCoy?" West asked incredulously.

"He carries the rank of Lieutenant Commander."

McCoy scowled in a way that would shame anyone else who ever tried to frown, and cursed under his breath about ever getting out of the damn turbolift in the first place, and how he should have just waited to be rescued.

"Are you done now?" Sulu asked when the obscenities began to repeat themselves.

"I'd appreciate some suggestions," he muttered, and crossed his arms, scowling at the Captain's chair. "And I'm not sitting in that, I know what Jim does in it."

Grinning wickedly, Sulu spoke first. "I recommend we initiate emergency procedure alpha two. Bypass computer control and place all systems on manual override."

"Sounds good."

"Aye, aye, _sir_."

"May I suggest that our next priority be to stabilize life support and try to re-establish intership communications?" Uhura suggested. McCoy nodded.

"Yes. Ensign…what's your name? West? You're from Science? I'd like you to assist Lieutenant Uhura," Bones said.

"I'm filling in for Ensign Battaglia. And yes, sir."

Bones settled uneasily into Jim's chair after checking the creases and wiping it off with his sleeve.

"Great. Just perfect," he muttered under his breath, staring out the viewscreen into space. "Picked a damned bad day to wear a red shirt."

Captain James Tiberius Kirk opened his eyes to see an unfocused face hovering close above his, and the first thing he wondered was how on earth he had passed out during sex.

Then he saw the pointy ears.

And realized that the owner of those pointy ears had been giving him CPR and was not a seventeen-year-old science officer.

"Bleh! Vulcan germs!"

"How do you feel, Captain?" Spock asked smoothly, while Kirk flailed, and tried to collect himself.

"Okay. A little foggy," he replied, and tried to remember what had happened. He had just finished giving a tour of the ship to the science fair winners, was walking to Sickbay, and had run into Spock, and there had been some sort of collision. "What happened?"

"It appears the ship has been hit. Lie still for a while," Spock flatly replied, and picked his way through the wrecked corridor to a nearby computer station. From the way his slanted eyebrows creased, he was being unsuccessful, and did not like what he was seeing. Kirk gradually stood up, and felt a rather large lump on the back of his head gingerly.

"Report."

"I have surveyed all the turbolifts and service crawlways on this deck. Access to the bridge has been completely severed by emergency bulkheads," Spock replied.

"Sickbay?" Kirk asked, rubbing his eyes.

Spock shook his head. "Heavy damage to section twenty three A has cut off access to Sickbay. Before you regained consciousness, I managed to order a security team to bring casualties to the cafeteria until further notice."

Kirk nodded his approval, and began to think, however monumental a task Bones thought it was for him, Kirk could be a capable captain when he wanted to. "I think we should assume the worst, that everyone on the bridge is dead. There's no one in control of the ship."

"In that circumstance, re-establishing control should be our top-priority," Spock stated.

"Agreed," Kirk replied. "Can we get to Main Engineering?"

"Yes, sir," Spock said, pulling up schematics of the ship on the screen. "The most direct route is blocked, but I believe we can use a starboard service crawlway."

"Okay, you and I will try to get there." Kirk turned to the security team hovering in the cafeteria doors he had not noticed before. Many of them looked rather anxious, and several looked fresh out of Starfleet, but he picked out Nurse Chapel's face in the crowd, McCoy's favorite assistant. "Men, this room is going to fill up with wounded in a few minutes and they're going to need help. Nurse Chapel, I want you to stay in charge here."

"Yes, sir," she replied.

As Kirk and Spock were leaving, they already saw one security man in a red shirt carrying a woman in, who was quickly received by the Nurse, tricorder at the ready. Kirk chewed on his lip as he fought the urge to stay and help his crew.

"They have their orders, Captain," Spock quickly said, observing the Captain's hesitation to leave. "It is our duty to protect them and regain control of the ship."

Kirk nodded firmly, forcing his compassionate side down that told him to stay where he could directly help. He couldn't believe what had happened. He couldn't think about his friends on the bridge, and what might have happened to them. He just had to focus on the task at hand, and worry about casualties later.

"Let's go."

I wiped some sweat off my forehead. The plasma fire was making it a lot warmer in the cargo bay, and Pavel and I had both rolled our sleeves up as far as they could go, and he was working on getting a transporter in the bay going while I was trying to think of a plan.

"We can withstand this level of radiation for another three or four hours without any permanent damage," I reported after finishing my tricorder readings. "We'll need a few days of hyronalin treatments."

"Vhat are ze radiation levels in the quantum?"

I started to bite my fingernail only to have him smack my hand away from my mouth. "They're at eighty three rads and rising at a rate of about four rads per minute."

Chekov seemed to take this news pretty well. He shrugged. "Zat stuff," he gestured to the fallen barrels of chemicals strewn across the floor. "Gets pretty unstable at around three hundred and fifty rads. I still haven't been able to get any power to zis transporter."

A faint idea sparked in my mind as I looked at the barrels of chemical, and got to my feet and walked over to the other end of the cargo bay, and started taking readings with the tricorder. Maybe Spock's pointless readings he made me do finally had a purpose, after all.

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "The radiation levels is about twenty percent lower at this end of the bay. Let's move the containers away from the plasma, over here."

Chekov broke into a grin. "Zat's a good idea! It should buy us some time. But… ju know we're going to have to do this by hand." I frowned at him. "With all the radiation floating around in here we can't trust the antigrav units."

I sighed heavily. "You're right. Let's get started."

"This should put us right behind shuttlebay two," Kirk wheezed, crawling on his hands and knees through the tube-like crawlway that was the service routes of the _Enterprise_. He really pitied the engineers who had to crawl through the tubes to do repairs now, and certainly understood why Scotty was always so reluctant to enter them in a crisis.

"Correct, sir. We have about fifty meters remaining in this crawlway before we can safely exit into a main corridor," Spock replied, pulling his shoulders together to fit through a metal frame. The unlikely pair continued to scramble and crawl through the small tubes, and Kirk yelped when he heard a loud popping noise behind him, and opaque gas burst out from under the grated floor and began to fill the crawlspace.

"Coolant leak!" Kirk shouted, and both men began to scramble forward as fast as they could. Kirk absently thought that it was a wonder that more engineers weren't claustrophobic, and breathed a sigh of relief when Spock managed to close a bulkhead behind them, only for an energy barrier to start up ahead. "Crap."

Back on the bridge, the few conscious officers were gathered around a rear science station.

"There," Sulu said, pointing out a spike on one of the few functional stations. "Just before the second time we were hit. See the subspace distortion?"

"Yes," Bones muttered. "Just how big is a quantum filament?"

"It can be hundreds of feet long, but it has almost no mass, which makes it very hard to detect."

"So, it's like a cosmic string?" Bones asked, frowning as he tried to wrap his head around the concept.

"No," Sulu said, resisting the urge to bash his head against a wall explaining physics to the grumpy doctor. "That's a completely different phenomenon."

Both men jumped when another station burst into light, beeping as it came online.

"How did you do that?" Sulu exclaimed, whirling around to face a startled Ensign West.

"I diverted power from the phaser array and I just dumped it into the engineering control system," he innocently replied. Sulu's mood went from bad to worse in a second.

"You _what_?" he nearly shouted at the lower officer.

"Engineering station's online, Doctor," West explained to the blank look on Bones' face.

"But that's a completely improper procedure! You can't just _dump_ that much raw energy into a bridge terminal without blowing," Sulu snapped.

"Well, we're not going to get out of this by playing it safe, Lieutenant," West shot back, taking a leaf out of Carly's book.

"What is our engine status, Ensign," Uhura interrupted the argument.

"We've got half impulse power available, but I'm getting some odd readings from the warp drive," West answered. "I'm reading a spike in the warp field array. It looks like a containment deviation."

"Switch to primary bypass," Sulu ordered, leaning over West's shoulder while Bones looked on.

"Nothing. Field strength's at forty percent and falling." A series of whistles drew the scientist's attention elsewhere. "We've got a problem."

"What? What?" Bones snarled.

West gulped, hoping that the doctor wouldn't order him an early physical in retribution for all this later. "The quantum resonance of the filament caused a polarity shift in the antimatter containment field," he replied, to blank looks from everyone but Sulu.

"When the filament hit us, the ship was momentarily charged, like it was electrified," Sulu clarified.

"That weakened the containment field surrounding the antimatter pods. The field strength is at forty percent and it's still falling," West finished for the other man.

"If it falls to fifteen percent the field will collapse and we'll have a containment breach," Sulu ended the explanation.

"Which means?" Doctor McCoy asked impatiently, knowing he wasn't going to like this one little bit.

"Which means the ship will explode," Sulu answered.


End file.
